A rapid method was established for quantifying 4-ethylphenol in wine using HPLC with a detector usually present in wine laboratories. It does not require sample preparation and carries out chromatographic separation in less than 5 min, making control of wine production processes easier. The method is linear up to 2000 μg·l-1 with RSD < 3 % over 20 μg·L-1 and gives a detection limit of 4.0 μg·L-1. It was validated in comparison with the HPLC-coulometric array detector, giving comparable results. Its application to the analysis of 720 DOC and table Italian red wines revealed that the 45 % of them had contents of 4-ethylphenol potentially affecting sensory perception of the aroma.
