The 2009 vintage en primeur campaign has gotten off to a flying start with early hype predicting another bumper year for the Bordeaux region. With all the journalists and merchants heading out to the region, it seems we’re being primed for a big campaign with equally large prices.

Despite the preconception that the recession has left people to broke to support the en primeur business, it seems that new buyers are emerging from around the world with a second BBR office opening in Hong Kong and many Aisan buyers plugging the gaps that the Western investors have had to pull back on. Saying that, it does seem that web traffic being monitored for search related terms is not slowing down and London Wine merchant, Jeroboams, report that their enquiries for the 2009 Bordeaux en primeur are reaching the same as those of the vaunted 2005.

It is early days yet but the allocations will soon be allocated and the sellers will be hitting the call back buttons to the early enquirers and staple diet customers of yesteryear. We’ll be piping through as many reports as we can on our site at Bordeaux En Primeur.

A big name chateau getting preliminary scores already by big name wine writers are Lafite 100. Latour 99. Cheval 100. Haut-B 97. Margaux 98. Mouton 94. Ausone 97. Petrus 98. Yquen 99 points (@timatkin – Twitterfeed). But isn’t that the rub? Gary vaynerchuk wisely pointed out that the scores between the 2008 en primeur’s and the 2009 vintage is not that great but the trouble is, the price disparity is. It does highlight that the scoring methods for wines by trusted industry stalwarts like Robert Parker or Jancis Robinson need closer attention. a 100 point wine rating convention that has a tendency to score wines in the high 90′s and then announces a special vintage does leave it self much room for differentiation. Does this mean that we are meant to look at every score within a certain context? It seems that as we look back over the vintages and compare the scores, we also need a hell of a lot of notes to make the scores a meaningful representation of the vintage to the buyer.

It doesn’t all quite add up, does it? Surely a score given at a given time that is a universal scoring method, should be just that… a universal scoring method. So what’s the solution? I expect that getting out to the tastings and sampling them yourself is a good but not often workable solution. A good idea is to hand pick a couple of wine critics both from the UK and the USA and closely compare and contrast their scores and notes to inform your selection. Drinkers tend to have a different outlook to investors; the taste and style and aging potnetial will be paramount. For investors, the best route is to buy the top chateau in the big vintages.

Rebecca started drinking heavily when she was a junior in college. Fortunately for her, even though she drank abusively and excessively when she was a teen and a young adult, over the years she has been mostly a moderate drinker.

After she completed her education she eventually got a job at a local metal recycling plant where she applied herself and worked her way up from stock person, to office assistant, to purchasing assistant, to purchasing agent. Unlike her other work positions, as the purchasing agent she over and over again took potential vendors and existing vendors to lunch and to various sporting events.

Though it was not written in stone, meeting with existing vendors and potential vendors again and again involved situations in which alcohol was present. Indeed, over the past sixteen months, Rebecca had started to noticeably increase her social and her work-related drinking. This has led to a predicament. To be exact, the more successful she became as a purchasing agent, the more heavily she began to drink.

Her Almost Constant Feelings of Depression Also Made Her Wonder Whether She Was Becoming an Alcohol Addicted Person

Indeed, it didn’t take much time at all before Rebecca’s abusive and careless drinking started to adversely affect her relationships, her mental health, the money in her savings account, her work efficiency, and her health. After many weeks of excessive drinking, Rebecca, as a matter of fact, began to get concerned about her excessive and irresponsible drinking and questioned whether her alcohol related problems were alcoholism signs. To make things worse, her almost constant feelings of depression also made her question if she was becoming an alcohol dependent individual. In a word, Rebecca obviously needed to learn more about the facts about alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency.

Rebecca Needs Alcohol Detox and Alcohol Rehab For Her Alcohol Dependency and a Medical Evaluation Regarding Her Depression

So Rebecca used her reasoning skills, called her family doctor, and set up an appointment for a thorough physical examination. The next week when she saw her healthcare professional, Rebecca regrettably discovered that she was alcohol dependent. Her doctor informed Rebecca that she needed to get alcohol detoxification and alcohol rehab for her alcohol dependency and that she also needed to get a medical evaluation regarding her depression. In a word, Rebecca needed treatment for her alcoholism and depression.

The Positive News is That After Her Treatment For Alcohol Dependency and For Depression, She Felt Like a New Individual

Her healthcare professional recommended to Rebecca that she take a 45-day leave of absence from work and get admitted into a quality in-patient alcohol rehabilitation program where she could also be treated for her depression. This is exactly what Rebecca did. The positive news is that after her treatment for depression and for alcoholism, she felt like a new person. In fact, now that she was in recovery she almost never got depressed and she now comprehended how to more successfully and productively manage her relationships, her job, her finances, and her health.

It goes without saying that the most difficult “test” Rebecca encountered was at the office. More precisely, she still took her existing vendors and potential vendors to various sporting events and to lunch, but after her alcohol rehab she managed to stay away from drinking while entertaining her clients.

It can be stressed that Rebecca also discovered that none of her existing vendors or potential vendors thought any less of her because of her non-alcoholic lifestyle. Alternatively, she learned that her existing vendors and potential vendors respected her for staying true to her convictions.

After Rebecca went through alcohol rehabilitation, however, she found out that she was an individual who for whatever reason, could not drink responsibly and in moderation. In point of fact she learned the hard way that if she refrained from drinking, all of the other significant parts of her life would be enhanced. At times, Rebecca missed drinking, but the better relationships, health, finances, and the better work performance she experienced more than counterbalanced her love of drinking.