1. Armen Mirzoian, TTB International Wine Technical Forum May 6, 2015
Allergen Testing
Armen Mirzoian, TTB
International Wine Technical Forum
May 6, 2015
Prepared for the International Wine Technical Forum and presented for purposes of discussion. This is not an authoritative statement of agency policy or guidance.

2. Allergen Testing in Wine
Advantages of ELISA
Sensitive (ppm range)
Quantitative or semi-quantitative
Measure amount of offending food component (i.e. proteins)
Fairly rapid
Equipment needs are
minor (plate reader)
Advantages of MS
Absolute identification and quantification of allergens
Highly sensitive
Excellent confirmatory method MS
ELISA
Disadvantages of MS
Requires high level of expertise
High cost of equipment
Time consuming
Laborious
Extraction and cleanup needed
Not useful for routine
analyses
Disadvantages of ELISA
Cross-reactivity
Values obtained from kits do not agree
Lack of reference materials
Need to do “in house” validation of ELISA

3. Allergen Testing in Wine
Allergen disclosure on wine labels is currently voluntary in the U.S.
TTB’s Scientific Services Division is planning to study feasibility of ELISA techniques for screening allergens in wine:
Egg (Ovalbumin)
Milk (Casein)
Lysozyme

4. Allergen Testing in Wine
TTB is collaborating with E&J Gallo and FARRP on developing a Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry method (LC-MSMS) for egg and milk screening in wine

5. Gluten in Distilled Spirits
Gluten fragmented/hydrolyzed during fermentation
Sandwich ELISA is inadequate for measuring hydrolyzed gluten
We are evaluating total protein colorimetric assays (Lowry, BCA, Bradford) for detecting trace level protein in DS.

6. Questions?
Thank you!