Starting your own vineyard: The trellis conundrum

This picture is from the spring of 2003 when we had just planted the vines.  A trellis post is in the foreground and there is another at the end of the row. In between, stakes support the baby vines. As you can see, there are no trellis wires yet.  The vines won't grow high enough to need trellising until the second year.

In the fall of 2002, we were getting ready for the arrival of our baby vines in the spring of '03.  We had placed the trellis posts at either end of the rows and then waded into researching the bewildering topic of trellising.  As usual, we turned to From Vines to Wines: The Complete Guide to Growing Grapes and Making Your Own Wine.  This book by Jeff Cox had become our bible.  Although he walks you through trellis systems such as Four-arm Kniffen, Movable Wire and Geneva Double Curtain in an organized, methodical manner, we were overwhelmed with information. 

Since we recently decided that we would try to grow the vines as organically as was possible in our climate, we had invested in another great book: The Grape Grower: A Guide to Organic Viticulture  The author, Lon Rombough, recommended a simple two-wire system. Basically, two end posts with one wire about five feet off the ground and the second wire fifteen inches above that. 

We then went back to Jeff Cox's book to see what he had to say about the two-wire system.  We discovered that a two-wire trellis system is the most common type used in the United States and is the most effective for all grape varieties.

So that's what we decided to use.  In reality, we didn't need anything other than the end posts for at least another year when the new vines would actually grow tall enough to reach the trellis wire. Looking back at our records, I found we planted the vines in the spring of 2003 but did not actually buy the trellis wire until March of 2004.