What’s happening in wine and whiskey this week:

This Week’s Unicorn Review Stories

🍷 Sarah Clarke's wine journey started out by visiting some of the best restaurants in France, and ultimately led her to LA stalwart Republique. She discussed her career and picked some of her favorite bottles at the restaurant.

🥃 Cognac might be the best known style of brandy, but this grape-based spirit can be found in many countries around the world that make expressions appealing to both wine and whiskey drinkers.

New Bottle Releases

Daniel Weller Spelt Wheat ($550)

The latest edition of Buffalo Trace’s Daniel Weller series, which is built around using different wheat varietals, is the new Spelt Wheat expression. Like most other whiskeys in the Weller lineup, this is a wheated bourbon. Buffalo Trace is famously tight-lipped about its mashbills, but what the distillery does reveal is that this bourbon was made using spelt wheat, an ancient grain normally used for baking and beer.

Peg Leg Porker “Spirit of America” Limited Edition Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon ($60)

This Nashville whiskey brand was founded by pitmaster Carey Bringle. The latest edition is a bottled-in-bond bourbon released to honor America’s 250th anniversary (one of many that you’ll see over the coming year). Details are a bit scarce about what's actually in the bottle, but given that it’s bottled-in-bond we know that it was made at one distillery, it’s at least four years old, and it’s bottled at 100 proof.

Unicorn Whiskey Pick of the Week

Remus Master Distiller Experimental Series No. 2 ($70)

Is this the year that wheat whiskey finally gets the recognition it deserves? That’s kind of a loaded question, because it assumes that you actually think wheat whiskey deserves recognition—and I would say that it does, given that there are some truly excellent options out there to try in this often under-recognized category. One of the latest comes from MGP under its Ross & Squibb line, which just added a wheat whiskey for the very first time to its Remus Bourbon brand.

The whiskey in question is the second release in the Remus Master Distiller Experimental Series, which is spearheaded by master distiller Ian Stirsman. The first expression arrived last year in the form of a nine-year-old bourbon aged in Seguin Moreau barrels. That company mostly makes French oak casks for aging wine and cognac, but in this case they made American oak barrels that were seasoned for 24 months, toasted, and lightly charred. As mentiond before, this new release is a wheat whiskey, the first to be bottled under the Remus brand.

This isn’t your standard 51 percent wheat whiskey (or thereabouts), however; instead it’s modeled after MGP’s rye recipe with 95 percent wheat in the mashbill. It was distilled in 2017, bottled at a high 113 proof, and finished in a combination of casks—tawny port, white port, ruby port, and Oloroso sherry. The result is a really flavorful and complex whiskey that is really unlike anything else you have probably tried from MGP or Remus. There are rich fruit notes that veer to the sweeter side of the flavor spectrum but step back from the precipice, along with flavors of roasted almond, dark chocolate, and vanilla custard. Overall, this is a much more interesting release than the first, and really lives up to the "experimental" part in the series’ name. This might not be your go-to Tuesday night pour, but it’s certainly an interesting creation that is worth trying.

Unicorn Wine Pick of the Week

Dispatch From the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles 2026 in Ciro, Calabria, Italy

I had the privilege of judging wines for the rosé portion of Concours Mondiale de Bruxelles this year on the southern end of Italy, surrounded by Mediterranean waters during weather that makes a warm place feel cold. We’re in Calabria, a wine region with a 3,000-year history, where vines stretch from wind-carved hilltops to within yards of the sea. Much of it is given to rosé wine, which makes this an ideal place to explore.

The Concours Mondiale is one of the oldest and largest wine competitions in Europe. You’ve probably come across the little medallion sticker on imported bottles in wine shops—aside from critics, it’s one of the more time-tested ways that wineries market their wares.

Just the rosé portion alone in 2026 encompasses more than 1,200 wines from 32 countries. (Judging for whites, reds, sparkling, and sticky wines each have their own weekend later in the year.) The judges, too, are an international lot. I’m one of just three Americans; the rest come from Britain and the E.U., as you’d expect, but also Africa, China, and even South Korea are represented. My tasting table included judges from Italy, France, Spain, and Hungary. It seemed like we shouldn’t agree on anything.

That’s not exactly true; quality finds its adherents, no matter where it comes from and no matter who’s judging. We tasted wines from eight countries this morning; the next two days will bring more sources. While I can’t tell you who won (at least not now—I’m not supposed to scoop the competition), I can tell you that one of our favorites was a rosado from Baja Mexico, which surprised the hell out of all of us.

We’re looking to find wines that fulfill the charm offensive that rosé is known for—its yum factor, for sure, but also its facility with food, a thing that was proven at our luncheon an hour after tastings concluded. When I can reveal  more of the results, I will. In the meantime, I urge you to stock up on spring pink wines from any number of Mediterranean locales, whether that’s Provence, Greece, Spain, or even Calabria, Italy.