Determination of esters in dry and sweet white wines by headspace solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography.

Headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) was studied for the high-resolution gas chromatographic (HRGC) analysis of esters in wines. Five different SPME fibers were tested and the influence of different factors such as temperature and time of desorption, extraction time, extraction technique, stirring, sample and vial volume, sugar and ethanol content were studied and optimised using model solutions. The proposed HS-SPME-GC method is an appropriate technique for the quantitative analysis of esters in dry and sweet white wines.