Occurrence of ochratoxin A in Greek wines

The presence of ochratoxin A in foods and wines is of current interest owing to its toxic effects. Ochratoxin A is a widely distributed mycotoxin with nephrotoxic activity. It constitutes a new restrictive agent for the export of vinicultural products and is thus important from an economic as well as a scientific point of view. In this study the determination of ochratoxin A in Greek wines was made by means of commercial immunoaffinity columns for purification followed by HPLC with fluorescence detection for quantification of the toxin. The method was applied to 28 dry wines (14 red, 13 white, one rose) and seven sweet wines (three red, four white) obtained by various viticultural and oenological practices. The levels of ochratoxin A ranged from <0.02 to 3.2 ng ml−1, with sweet wines containing higher levels than dry wines. Most of the wines contained relatively low concentrations of ochratoxin A (0.02–0.5 ng ml−1), which do not represent a serious risk to consumer health. © 2003 Society of Chemical Industry