Biogenic amines contenta as a measure of the quality of wines of Abruzzo (Italy).

Aim of this research was to study the effect of some agronomic and oenological factors on the content of biogenic amines as quality index of wines from 14 wineries of the Abruzzo (Italy). Out of 66 samples of wine (bottled and ready to trade) the following amines have been researched, identified and quantified: ethylamine (ETY), 2-phenylethylamine (2-PHE), putrescine (PUT), cadaverine (CAD), isoamylamine (ISO), histamine (HIS), tyramine (TYR), spermidine (SPD) and spermine (SPM).Sum of amines was found to be decreasing in the order: red wine (19.3 ± 12.8 mg L-1), rose wine (9.20 ± 6.34 mg L-1), white wine (7.67 ± 3.84 mg L-1). The single amines significantly correlated with their sum were the PUT (β = 0.94), the HIS (β = 0.91) and TYR (β = 0.89). The production of PUT was significantly associated (β = 0.69) with activity of malolactic bacteria (Mangani et al., 2005). The principal component analysis (PCA), as a result of autoscaling the data, explained about 50% of the total variability of the samples. The first component (LV1) was positively associated with PUT, HIS, TYR, and pH, negatively with malic acid content, discriminating red wines from white ones significantly. The second component (LV2) was negatively associated with ethanol and positively with CAD and total SO2 amount, discriminating white wines from the rest of the samples.The differences among the types of wine are due to different biotechnological process: microbial strains involved in the fermentation of white winemaking, have characteristics different from those involved in the red one, the environmental conditions that are created during the red winemaking favor an increased availability of substrates and optimal parameters (pH, T, etc. ..) for the amino acid decarboxylase activity. Besides the vintage, influential seems to be the effect of the winery, regardless of the geographic area in which it is situated. However, in all analyzed samples the maximum amounts of TYR and HIS were below the levels of toxicity (Konakovsky et al., 2011), demonstrating a good quality of the wines of Abruzzo, whose consumption is no risk to the health of the consumer following the rules of proper nutrition. Authors are very grateful for the co-operation of the Association of Enologists of Abruzzo-Molise.[...]