DETERMINATION OF BIOGENIC-AMINES IN WINE AFTER CLEANUP BY SOLID-PHASE EXTRACTION

A suitable method for the determination of 16 biogenic amines in wine has been developed. The method involves clean-up of wine samples using ion-exchange cartridges and a preconcentration step, under controlled vacuum, before derivatization of the amines by treatment with phthalaldehyde (PA) and reversed-phase HPLC with gradient elution and fluorimetric detection. Linearity of response was obtained for all the biogenic amines from 100 mu g L(-1) to 10 mg L(-1) Limits of detection for the amines were similar for all PA-derivatives (25-50 mu g L(-1)) and the quantitation limits were about 0.1 mg L(-1) clean-up and preconcentration, the concentration levels increased 10-fold for all amines except putrescine and cadaverine, which gave poor recovery by this method unlike the rest which gave recoveries of almost 90%. The overall process was successfully applied to identify and quantify biogenic amines in several red wines from the Tarragona region.