What’s happening in wine and whiskey this week:

This Week’s Unicorn Review Stories

🍷 Portugal is known for its distinctive, affordable wines, but the underrated Alentejo region is due for its moment in the spotlight.

🥃 Who was Marcella McKenna? Turns out this trailblazing woman played an important role in the history of the McKenna whiskey brand, and Kentucky bourbon.

New Bottle Releases

Port Charlotte 18 ($200)

This is the oldest expression in Bruichladdich’s heavily peated Port Charlotte range. It was matured in a variety of cask types, including sherry, bourbon, red wine, and virgin oak, before being bottled at more than 52 percent ABV. Even if you think you don’t like smoky single malt scotch, give this one a try—it has layers of complexity that go way beyond the smoke.

Hogo Monsta ($55)

This unique rum is not meant for sipping—it’s meant to be used very sparingly to add a little bit of flavor to a cocktail. That’s because it has a really high amount of aromatic compounds, way more than any other rum on the market, which contributes to the “hogo” flavor (funky, intense) that some Jamaican rum is famous for. This rum, however, is from Barbados and comes courtesy of Planteray, a brand owned by French company Maison Ferrand.

Unicorn Whiskey Pick of the Week

Woodford Reserve Double Double Oaked ($200)

The name of this bourbon can cause a bit of confusion for some. It kind of sounds like this Woodford release is a double-double-barreled bourbon, but that’s not the case. Instead, this is a version of the distillery’s Double Oaked bourbon that spends twice as long in a secondary set of casks than the original—two years instead of one, after initially aging for five to seven years. Last year it joined the lineup as a member of the core portfolio, and that’s a very good thing.

Double Double Oaked was originally part of the Woodford Distillery Series, but that changed when it decided to add the whiskey to the core lineup and release it nationally—albeit, still in limited numbers. It was just re-released, and whiskey drinkers should take note. Double barreling a bourbon in a new set of American oak casks has become a relatively common practice, with many different brands and distilleries doing this to increase intensity of flavor and augment notes of oak, spice, and vanilla. That is certainly the case here with this lengthy secondary maturation, which has resulted in a fantastic bourbon (90.4 proof just like regular Woodford)  that is, it should be said, pretty expensive at $200. Still, if you like your bourbon bold and expressive, this is a great new bottle to try.

Unicorn Wine Pick of the Week

Tenuta San Leonardo 2020 San Leonardo Red Blend, Vignetti della Dolomiti IGT ($125)

It’s good to remember that wines built to age are built in cellars all over the world, not just in the better known places where their reputation precedes them.

In Northern Italy, for example, Barolos, Barbarescos, and Gattinaras tend to hog the spotlight, but there are splendid ageable wines made all throughout the country’s northern climes. East of Milan, in the subalpine valleys north of Verona, the conditions are ideal for red varieties, with unique atmospheric patterns, dramatic diurnal shifts, and long grape maturation periods conducive to a long cellar life.

That’s certainly the case with this week’s wine, the prestigious San Leonardo red blend from the the Guerreri Gonzaga family. Viticulture has been practiced here, in the shadow of the Dolomites, since 1724, and the estate has been a modern player in prestigious red wines for more than a century.

It is a spectacular site, set in an alpine valley surrounded by foothills, such that the property is influenced by Alpine and Mediterranean climate patterns—even breezes off Lake Garda, to the south and west, keep the region temperate in winter and cooler in summer.

The family turned the estate over to Bordeaux varieties in the 19th century, planting Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Carmenere, a variety that had been a mystery until somewhat recently. The Carmenere is unusual in the region and yields an especially unique wine, giving off a textbook leafy, peppery note with the kind of polish that 24 months in oak will allow for.

The wine is as mouthwatering as it is deep. Its savory aromas give way to a flavors of lean red berry fruit, and a texture that feels firm and posh, emphasizing fruit skin and firm tannins with the stuff to age 20 years or more. Unique, to be sure, enough to earn Tre Bicchieri honors from Gambero Rosso no less than 25 times since 1993.