Cyprus Gourmet talks to the Travellinâ€™ Man: Morgan Dalacloche

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Morgan Dalacloche’s business card states he is Area Export Manager for the Burgundian wine houses of Bouchard Père et Fils and William Fevre, whose exceptional wines we have noted are now available here at Oenoforos Wine Warehouse, Limassol. He gave it to me as we sat eating some of the fresh fish and seafood prepared by the Londa’s chef-de-cuisine Patric Steklmacher. As we ate we looked through open doors to a sunshine and people-filled terrace and sea view. The temperature was 22°C. Bliss, especially as we had some of the aforementioned wines to sample.
I asked Morgan, whose first name denotes family origins in Brittany, about the area he covers. He answered by saying, “Last week I was in Estonia. The temperature was 15 degrees below zero. I heard of wine shipments from outside the EU sitting at the Customs freezing solid in the bottles”. I made a mental note not to drink Chilean wine in Estonia and commented simply on the problem of storing wine in Cyprus because of the heat.
Morgan lives in Beaune, where he told me, “it has been a very cold winter there, too, with temperatures down to minus five or more”. But, of course, there are a goodly number of splendid eating places with wines to match in that lovely town.
As we supped a glass of utterly nectarish William Fèvre Chablis Grand Cru with our fish, I asked Morgan what his wife did when he was away. “She is a wine sales executive, too”, he replied, “and she travels much like I do, but she carries a portfolio of the wines of 160 of the smaller Domaines of Burgundy”. How lovely to attend a tasting of that portfolio, I thought. And how much you would have to love the wines you are selling to live out of a suitcase year-round and endure temperature changes from minus 15 to 20 plus.