I've actually curled the vine around the top of the soil in a large pot. I noticed a couple of bumps at some of the nodes that looked like it was trying to start roots. We'll see what happens. Hopefully it will root and give the plant extra energy and give me new plants.

I checked the grapevine in question, and it seems to be dead--or is at least on its way. It's scratchable in certain spots, but there is no obvious green--more like yellow. Anyway, I contacted Miller Nurseries in NY, who had sent the plant. They have the following policy: Even though the hardiest stock may be lost due to incorrect planting or improper care, we will replace, credit, or refund (at our discretion) the purchase price of planting stock on the following terms: Return your Order Acknowledgement, Packing List or other proof of purchase within one year accompanied by $3.25 to assist with packing/handling of the replacement order I talked with one of their agents, and told her that I don't believe my grapevine was "hardy" to begin with, After all, I treated the other one the same way, and it seems to be fine now. She surprised me and said they would send out another one--so I didn't have to pay the $3.25 fee after all. Seems only fair, though. If I felt like I had messed up a perfectly good plant, I wouldn't have a problem paying the fee, but if the plant never shows signs of life, that's hardly the customer's fault. Just goes to show that sometimes it pays to haggle. :)

Can you post pics of the local trellis? What I want to figure out is can you switch between the two styles. If so I would do both methods with extra space between the lines of the regular style. If you need to do something others won't you might want to try methods others won't. Maybe you will have better luck.

Greetings: I do not grow wine grapes but I do grow Concord and Reliance grapes. When I have a young vine that sends up multiple canes in summer, I summer prune and remove all but one. Why let them grow til winter and prune when dormant? Wasted growth as better for the vine to put all its resources into the one cane you want so you can get it up to the trellis and trained as quickly as possible. I also summer prune on my older established grapevines as they put out way too much growth so I trim back some of the growth. I also trim off some leaves near the fruit clusters or I have a wall of foliage that is very hard to spray thru to get fungicides on the fruit clusters. I am growing mine on a 4- arm Kniffen system not cordon system but summer pruning should not harm the vine either way.