Pass the claret!

Switching from whisky to Bordeaux, Tom Morton discovers the solution to Brexit for Scots: Actually, we’re French!

by Tom Morton

MY NAME IS Thomas MacCalman Morton, and I am French. And Scottish. So, possibly, are you. Brexit? No problem...

Let me tell you a story:

Let’s take a detour away from whisky for a wee while, and, sipping a pleasantly piquant glass of Bordeaux, remember the Hogmanay of 1999, as we veered into the year 2000, and a new millennium. The advent of which, we had been told, would cause all our computers to crash, thanks to the so-called ‘Millennium Bug’. Shortly afterwards, the world would end.

Of course, most of the digital doom-mongers were trying to sell us software which would, supposedly, eradicate the evil virus and see us safely into the coming thousand years. But was 1999/2000 the actual entry point into the new millennium, or was it 2000/2001? Who cared? Have another glass of Chateau Morton! I had been given a bottle of Chateau Morton by a BBC producer the previous year, who had bought a case of the stuff from the writer, broadcaster and francophile Billy Kay, who at that time had a sideline as ‘un garagiste’ - a small importer of favourite wines from France, which he retailed to friends, colleagues and acquaintances.