Fatty Acid Profiling in Greek Wines by Liquid Chromatography–High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (LC-HRMS)

In recent years, the interest in lipids present in wines has increased, because these natural components, even at low or very low concentrations, play an important role in wine evolution and quality and contribute substantially to the taste and mouthfeel of wines. Herein, we present a liquid chromatography–high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) method for the profiling of free fatty acids (FFAs) in wines. The method is fast and allows the simultaneous determination of twenty-seven saturated and unsaturated FFAs in wine samples, avoiding any prior derivatization step. After validation, a variety of white and rose commercial wine samples from the Greek market, either sparkling or non-sparkling, were analyzed by the present method. The majority of wine FFAs are saturated long aliphatic, in particular palmitic (C16:0) and stearic (C18:0) acids, followed by myristic (C14:0) and pentadecanoic (C15:0) acids, while oleic (C18:1), palmitoleic (C16:1) and linoleic (C18:2) acids were quantified among the unsaturated FAs. The medium-chain C6:0 and the unsaturated C16:1 and C18:2 acids were found at higher concentrations in rose wines compared to white.