Martin, I would never claim to be a wine expert, although I worked in Belgium for a while where the French wines were quite available. Nor does my lady who was born and bred in France. We are both pretty good with "table wines" as to knowing what we want, she the common Cotes du Rhone or a Beaujolais Village. Myself I am an expert on beer, and enjoy the occasional wine as long as it is simple. But that isn't a good reason for writing this (although I appreciate the bit on "bright fruit" versus "dark tannins", and one does hope for the harmony). I have to tell you of the rather pretentious friend who came to a a party we had and brought a house present of a bottle of wine. I don't remember the year, but let's just say it was 1989. He brought a bottle of 1988 Beaujolais Neuveau because he had read that '88 was a good year.
I shouldn't have categorized the regions, but then again I shouldn't have categorized the instruments. All generalizations are false, including this one <g>. But I do think the bridged instruments age better than the direct pull ones, although all of them improve with play for some period of time. At least that is true with harps, although I don't know if there is a physical anology with our bodies - that exercise keeps the flexibility. But there seems to be some logic there. Wood, if well treated, can be living when it is dead. Not growing, but yet living. But eventually we all wear out - some sooner than others. Slainte vor, slainte gael, Best, Jon I see we have no wine experts on the list! The potential for aging in a wine is a combination of many factors, and winemakers "design" wines to be (or not to be) suitable for aging. Unfortunately age is expensive, so the modern tendency is to create wines which are suitable for immediate consumption (and which will therefore not last more than a few years). Jon, some Côtes du Rhone wines are *only* suited to being aged for 10+ years, Cornas for example. There may be a parallel with instruments. I once (only once!) made a lute which was fantastic when it was new, and less so after a year or two. It is still a good lute, but not as good as it was. All my other lutes seem to have improved markedly with age, and show no signs of going over the top. When new, some have bright fruit predominating, some have dark tannins, but with age one hopes that a harmony of all the elements will develop. Santé a tous, Martin
