Determination of biogenic amines in wines by HPLC with precolumn dansylation and fluorimetric detection

Thirty-two samples of commercially available Greek wines were analysed in order to determine the content of biogenic amines. The method involves pre-column dansylation of the amines and subsequent solid phase extraction (SPE) of the derivatives through C18 cartridges. For the analysis, RP-HPLC (reversed phase-high performance liquid chromatography) coupled with fluorimetric detection at excitation and emission wavelengths of 320 and 523 nm, respectively was used. All amines measured had recoveries over 85%. The highest detection limit was for agmatine (0.18 mg l−1). Putrescine, cadaverine, histamine and isoamylamine are the most abundant amines in the samples analysed. The relative concentrations of biogenic amines expressed in mg l−1 had as follows: putrescine > histamine > isoamylamine > ethylamine > methylamine > cadaverine = tyramine = agmatine = tryptamine. Higher amounts of biogenic amines were generally detected in wines, aged for long periods in barrels or in bottles. However, young wines contained lower amounts of these compounds as they were directly bottled after winemaking and have not undergone any further maturation processing. Moreover, less acid wines gave rise to higher histamine contents.