A survey of biogenic amines in chinese red wines

Eight biogenic amines were analyzed in 38 samples of red wine from five wine-making regions of China. The analysis was carried out by reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detector and dansyl chloride precolumn derivation. Tryptamine was not found in any of the samples. Putrescine was detected in all samples (100%), followed by phenylethylamine (84.2%), spermidine (60.5%), histamine (57.8%), tyramine (57.8%), cadaverine (47.4%), and spermine (36.8%). In all the samples, the levels of aromatic and heterocyclic amines with toxicological effects were: 0–4.58 mg/l for phenylethylamine, 0–10.51 mg/l for histamine, and 0–9.13 mg/l for tyramine. The amount of histamine and tyramine in most of the samples (94.7%) was less than 8 mg/l. The amines associated with sanitary conditions were also found to be present in a very low range, between 0 and 12.98 mg/l for putrescine, 0 and 19.01 mg/l for cadaverine, respectively. In the case of other amines such as spermine and spermidine, they yielded very low levels varying between 0 and 2.64 mg/l for spermine, 0 and 3.82 mg/l for spermidine, respectively.