Thanks for all your replies, but I'm still not convinced that adding the wine first and reducing it by itself will make a difference. Once you add stock to the reduced wine aren't you diluting its concentration? Unless you reduce the wine to the point where it carmelizes to a certain degree I don't think that there will be a difference. The idea of "layering" flavors is a nice one, but let's not fool ourselves--we're creating a collage, or a stew--not a painting, or a terrine. The suggestion that the acidity of the wine reacts in a specific way with the other ingredients is more of what I am looking for--a scientific analysis of what really happens in the pot.