A rapid quantification of stilbene content in wine by ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography - Mass spectrometry

Stilbenes are a family of bioactive phenolic compounds. Wine is one of the main sources of stilbenes in diet. Very few studies have dealt with a detailed quantitative analysis of stilbenes in wine. Most methodologies reported until now have been restricted to the analysis of few stilbenes such as resveratrol and piceid. In this study, a method for the quantification of wine stilbenes has been developed and validated. The method was simple, fast and sensitive with LOD between 4 and 28 mu g/L. Matrix effects were assessed, and the methodology was validated in terms of precision, accuracy, linearity and repetitiveness. The method was able to quantify, in less than 5 min, fifteen targeted stilbenes in wines including seven monomers, three dimers, one trimer, and four tetramers. The methodology was applied to white and red wines. E-piceid was the main stilbene in white wine (mean 155 mu g/L). In red wine, Z- and E-piceid (mean 3.73 and 3.16 mg/L, respectively) were predominant. Additionally, large amount of other stilbenes including oligomers such as hopeaphenol (mean 1.55 mg/L) were found in red wines. The developed methodology could be useful to reveal differences in the contents of stilbenes in wine depending on variety, season, terroir, treatments, among others and potentially be used as a quality wine marker.