Welcome in, today is Friday, July seventeenth, and we begin in Australia, where the 2026 wine harvest has slumped to a twenty-five-year low. The Drinks Business and Just Drinks both report weak global demand and extreme weather weighing on the crush, described as the smallest in more than a quarter of a century. And here is the sting for growers: even a sharply smaller crop has not lifted grape prices, which kept falling. That points to a supply glut a lighter harvest has done nothing to clear. Industry reaction reads more forward-looking than defensive, with some framing new certification efforts around planting-material quality as a way to rebuild confidence before committing fresh capital to the ground. Reported personnel cuts at larger producers, meanwhile, suggest the downturn is now reaching payrolls, not just prices and demand. Staying with wine, the fine wine market steadied through the first half of the year, and the swing factor was American. Liv-ex's latest market report, cited by The Drinks Business and Harpers, shows US buyers accounting for a growing share of purchasing in the second quarter, often paying above market for wines in its Fine Wine 1000 index. That renewed US appetite offset Asian buyers, who the data shows took more of a backseat. For anyone pricing stock, it is stabilisation of a particular kind. Market participants sound cautious on how durable it is, framing the US return as existing capital moving around rather than net-new demand, with pricing-power questions still hanging over the market. Now, a development in a story we have been following. With Lawson Whiting's retirement from Brown-Forman confirmed, Just Drinks frames the central succession question as whether the owning family looks beyond the industry for its next chief, as Diageo and Heineken recently did. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. American whiskey's top shelf is holding the line. Impact Databank figures reported by Shanken News Daily put the above-twenty-five-dollar segment at just under eleven million cases, roughly flat since 2023, but still outpacing a total American whiskey category that fell two and a half percent last year. The figures are offered as evidence that premiumisation is propping up an otherwise declining category. Commentary in the channel reads the outperformance less as a rising tide than as a split, with disciplined, established brands proving resilient on financial rigor while weaker players face distress. Separately, Irish whiskey is tipped to grow faster than Scotch in travel retail. The Spirits Business reports the category is gaining depth and a lengthening ladder of price points at airport shops outside Ireland, the basis cited for expectations it could outpace Scotch across duty-free. Ian Macleod is pulling back output. The Spirits Business reports annual production at its Glengoyne and Rosebank distilleries has been cut by thirty percent, which the company attributes to low demand. In litigation we have tracked, the receiver overseeing Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey has filed a counterclaim that, per Brewbound, BevNET and The Spirits Business, alleges lender Farm Credit Mid-America ignored years of red flags and benefited financially while a former CFO falsified reports and misappropriated funds. Those allegations are unproven in court. And finally, Pernod Ricard says its Irish whiskey names remain well placed despite tough conditions. Per Shanken News Daily, the company holds that Jameson and Redbreast are well positioned even as Impact Databank figures show US Irish whiskey volumes down five percent last year, to four and a half million cases, off a 2022 peak near five and a half million.