Ochratoxin A levels in Greek retail wines

A three years survey was carried out by the accredited Toxin Analysis Lab of the University of Patras “ELETOX” in order to investigate the level of Ochratoxin A (OTA) in Greek retail wines. Sixty samples of different type of wines (white, rose and red), dry or sweet, from different regions of Greece (western Greece, central Greece and Thessalia) were analyzed by using immunoaffinity column for clean-up purification and HPLC/FLD for detection. From the results, 47 out of 55 samples of dry wines (white, red and rose) and 5 out of 5 samples of sweet wines (white and red) were found to be infected by OTA. The level of infection in 55 samples was below of the EU limit (2 ng mL−1) while in 5 samples was exceeded that limit. More specifically, dry wines from Thessalia were contaminated with OTA ranging from 0.04 to 2.52 ng mL−1 while for samples from central and western Greece the contamination level was below of 0.51 ng mL−1. Finally, the findings of the present work are compared with those given in the literature.