Routine high-performance liquid chromatographic determination of carboxylic acids in wines and champagne.

Carboxylic acids have an important influence on the biological stability and the organoleptic properties of wines. A simple, rapid and reproducible high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of the main carboxylic acids (tartaric, malic, shikimic, lactic, acetic, citric, succinic, fumaric and propionic acids) in wines is described. There is no interference from either sugars or amino acids. The method does not need any preparation or extraction of the sample. The linearity, the level of detection, the repeatability and the reproducibility were studied for each acid. The results are compared with those obtained by chemical and enzymatic assays.