(WineSpectator) - A fellow came up to me the other day and said, "How long do you think such-and-such wine will live?" My initial impulse was to reply, "How the hell do I know?" But that, of course, is hardly what he wanted to hear. So I blathered on about cellaring conditions (cold slows maturation), cultural differences in taste (the French and Italians prefer younger wines while the English like their wines well-aged) and, finally, the sheer impossibility of predicting the life trajectory of any wine. I should have saved my breath. "I don't think the wine has structure," he said, full of self-assurance. That, he asserted, was the predictor of longevity. Where does this stuff come from? And, more important, why does it persist? It's astonishing how certain beliefs are the undead of wine, forever resurrected and roaming about.