A high performance liquid chromatographic method was developed to profile major sugars and organic
acids in grapevine berries. Sugars and organic acids in grapevine berries were extracted by chloroform/
polyvinylpolypyrrolidone purification. The extracts were chromatographed on an Aminex HPX-87H
ion-exchange HPLC column with 5 mM sulphuric acid as mobile phase. Chromatography was visualised
via a diode array detector combined with a refractive index detector. The analysis was calibrated using
external standard calibration and a novel equation was used to calculate the concentrations of malic
acid and fructose from unresolved separation. For the method to be utilised for analysing a large numbers
of berry samples, each sample was directly injected after sample extraction and the extraction step
was downscaled to allow the use of small amounts of sample material. The concentrations of sugars
and organic acids in grapevine berry samples were normalised to the internal standard concentrations
obtained after extraction of an internal standard mixture. The analysis method exhibits a good precision
and a high analyte recovery from samples spiked with the standard mixture and is suitable for the profiling
of major sugars and organic acids in grapevine berry samples at different stages of berry development.
This is the first report on the combined profiling of the major sugars and organic acids in grapevine berries
using milligram amounts of plant material with direct injection after sample extraction.