Characterization of wines through the biogenic amine contents using chromatographic techniques and chemometric data analysis.

This paper describes a new method for wine characterization based on the analysis of the biogenic amine composition and the chromatographic profiles using chemometric methods such as principal component analysis and partial least-squares regression. Amine contents have been determined by liquid chromatography with a precolumn derivatization with 1,2-naphthoquinone-4-sulfonate. The corresponding chromatographic data have been advantageously exploited for extracting relevant information regarding some wine features such as elaboration procedure, vintage, or origin region. Results indicate that amines might be used as descriptors of the certain enological practices. Besides, younger wines can be reasonably distinguished from aged ones on the basis of the amine contents. The wine characterization through the analysis of raw chromatographic profiles is proven to be also effective, and patterns dealing with aging processes have also been encountered.