Butyltin compounds are widespread contaminants which have also been found in some wines, determined by liquid-liquid extraction followed by alkylation with a Grignard reagent and gas chromatography-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) analysis. A promising alternative to this extraction/derivatization method is the one-step tetraethylborate in situ ethylation/solid-phase micro-extraction (SPME) method. In this work, a SPME-GC-MS method for the determination of butyltin compounds in wine was optimised. The optimised parameters concerned the pre-treatment with tetramethylammonium hydroxide, matrix modification with sodium chloride, tetraethylborate concentration, extraction time and temperature, and the GC separation program. The analytical figures of merit of the optimised method (range, limit of detection (LOD) and reproducibility) were evaluated. The sensitivity (range 20-1421 kcounts g -1 l -1 as Sn) and LOD (range, 0.01-0.2 g l -1 as Sn) depended greatly on the butyltin species to be measured and on the type of wine. For the tested species (monobutyltin, dibutyltin and tributyltin) the highest sensitivities were achieved for Port wine samples, followed by red wine > white wine > white Verde wine. The method allowed acceptable repeatability (relative standard deviation (R.S.D.), 6-8%; n = 4) and reproducibility (R.S.D., 8-9%; n = 3).