Friday, December 02, 2011

Death by Cabernet!

I could not stand them any longer: I had to do something about the swarms of fruit flies that were orbiting my noggin as I tried to enjoy a chilled glass of Sauvignon blanc with dinner last night. Where do these beastly flies come from? Fermentation is well and truly over and there's not even a piece of rotten fruit lurking at the bottom of our fruit bowl. One day Vinoland seemed relatively Drosophila melanogaster free, the next - veritable mobs of those little te noires everywhere (although they're not black). Of course, it has been unseasonably warm these past few days.
It seemed I had only one recourse, to promptly make a fruit fly trap. And, as soon as I had finished breakfast this morning I was on it. Within a short few hours, my cling film-topped plastic cup, baited with a premium Napa Cabernet sauvignon, contains at least six dozen trapped, dying and dead fruit flies (there are worse ways to pop one's clogs).
Seriously, where are these things coming from?

5 comments:

Vinomaker said...

Well, Vinogirl, considering that it only takes 7-10 days from egg to adulthood for these annoying little creatures, and each female begins sexual activity within 10 hours of emergence laying about 400 eggs, I think you can do the math. The only missing ingredient is a fruit souce like grapes, for example. Given that the Vinoland seems to run on wine, I think I may have an answer.

Cesar Valverde said...

Congrate VG- perhaps the first in a series of posts entitled 'Things to do with premium Napa Cab Sav if you can't palate drinking the stuff' ;-)

Vinogirl said...

VM: They certainly have plenty to drink here.

Cesar: The series would be very short...one perhaps could be 'how to make a tie-dye shirt with premium Napa Cab'! Perhaps not, that post would only be of interest to the old hippies out there.

Leon Stolarski said...

We've been plagued by these damn things all summer and autumn, but over the past week or so, they finally seem to have disappeared. I like your little gizmo for exterminating them, though, and will certainly be employing a similar version next year!

Vinogirl said...

Leon: The traps really work.