DETERMINATION OF BIOGENIC-AMINES AND THEIR PRECURSOR AMINO-ACIDS IN WINES OF THE VALLEE DU RHONE BY HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY WITH PRECOLUMN DERIVATIZATION AND FLUOROMETRIC DETECTION

The presence of biogenic amines in foods and more particularly in wine s is of current interest due to their pharmacological properties and t he physiological disorders they may provoke in the human organism. Alt hough at present compounds like histamine or cadaverine can be analyze d with precision in wine, less information is provided on the possible presence of spermine and spermidine. Using fluorenylmethylchloroforma te (FMOC) as derivatization reagent we were able to determine these co mpounds in wines simultaneously with other biogenic amines such as his tamine, tyramine, phenylethylamine, putrescine, agmatine, cadaverine, and precursor amino acids of these compounds, in their free state in w ine: arginine, ornithine, histidine, phenylalanine, and tyrosine. Samp les of 54 red wines, 15 rose wines and 15 white wines from the Vallee du Rhone (France), all bottled and commercialized, have been analyzed by this method. The polyamines cadaverine, spermine and spermidine are present in small quantities in these wines. Only agmatine and putresc ine appear at levels significantly higher than 1 mg/l. The presence of putrescine is strongly correlated to that of its precursors arginine, ornithine and agmatine, as well as with the presence of tyramine and histamine. On the other hand, no correlation (threshold of 5%) was fou nd between the levels of phenylethylamine, tyramine and histamine, and those of their free precursor amino acids in the wine, phenylalanine, tyrosine and histidine. Levels of putrescine, agmatine, histamine, ty ramine, spermine, spermidine are higher in red wines than in the other types of wine.