yeah I hear the crickets too. Wish this forum was more active. Seems like there's not a whole lot of people in AZ that are both computer savy and into growing uncommon grape varieties. The two seem somewhat mutually exclusive. Anyway, I don't know whether Thomcord grapes would do well, but I say what the heck? try it. I have the following varieties:
Thompson Seedless - doing fantastic with afternoon shade. - extremely vigorous.
Ruby Flame - Doing ok with afternoon shade. rather slow.
Red Flame - Gets afternoon sun, struggling.
Fantasy Seedless - Doing good, gets some afternoon shade, but more sun than TS. Vigorous.
Blueberry (grape variety) - Doing good on North side. Not very vigorous.
Right now most of them are recovering from a Whitefly infestation that nearly killed one of my TS vines.
My belief is that if you plant it against an east facing wall or maybe northeast facing or even north facing, you should be ok with just about any variety of grape as long as it doesn't get direct sun during the afternoon. I have several varieties that I'm interested in trying. If you can't find a spot that is not at least partially shaded, then don't plant it... definitely do not put them in full sun. I have a family member that tries to grow grapes in full sun, and they look pathetic... The ones I have on the east side of the house look beautiful, so location means a lot. I think I'll try Thomcord too. If you want to try from cuttings, I'd be interested in splitting an order. In fact I wonder if we could get a bunch of GardenWebbers near PHX to split a larger and more varied order of grapevine cuttings and reduce the cost that way.

I'm very interested in trying some varieties: Muscat Blanc, Jupiter, Black Monuka, Thomcord and maybe a few others.

I've never heard of Thomcords and don't currently have grapes, only questions. Greendesert, you describe your vines as vigorous, do you get grapes from them and if so what quantity do you get from each vine? There used to be huge areas of Thompson and Red Flame grown commercially in the valley area, I'm talking 40 years ago or better and they grew in full sun and produced beautiful sweet grapes. Is growing commercially different than a home garden setting or are our microclimates a big factor? Thanks for the information, you and agilitymom seem to have at least some success, that's great.

Thomcords are a cross between Thompson Seedless and Concord Grapes. Supposedly you get the best of both worlds.

>Greendesert, you describe your vines as vigorous,
What I mean by vigorous is how fast they grow and cover whatever trellis they're on. My Thompson Seedless can grow several feet in a month, One vine could cover a huge area in no time, while some of the others are just really slow and frail looking.
I had a ton of grapes on my thompson seedles this spring. I ate ZERO. My main problem is that I kinda bit off more than I could chew with buying this house so I'm kinda in over my head with things to do, and I end up waiting too long after a problem starts before I address it. First I had mildew, by the time I dealt with that, half the grapes were looking sorry, then skeletonizers, then whiteflies, birds and everything else in between, so no, I didn't get any grapes this year (it's only the second year anyway). Had I taken care of the vines, I would be harvesting a pretty good amount, I mean they were heavy with grape clusters. The key is to deal with problems promptly, or to prevent them, and these days sometimes I had to wait until the next paycheck to be able to afford the "treatment". Some pests can really do a lot of damage in no time, and this year was a really bad one for me. And don't even get me started on "organic gardening"... this year it was so bad that I said screw organic, I have a job, kids and a million other things to do and no time to hand pick skeletonizers or mess with silly solutions that don't work, so I finally pulled out the big guns.

this is new to me as well. I do have many grapes here at home close to Avondale. The most impressive is by far the Thompson grapes. I have them on the west side of the home and they are doing great. A few vines have grown approx. 2 ft. in the past month! I had some flame grapes along the west side as well but only one is doing well. I moved the other flame to the east side and it's hanging in there. I also have perlette and cabernet sauvignon grapes on the east side that are really growing in thick along some of that green tree wire.

I've only had to pick off 5 huge caterpillars from the thompson, but other than that I've been spared :)

I actually bought a Thomcord grape plant from Stark Bros earlier this year, but it didn't make it past the summer. The plant was a bit too small in my opinion (about 6-8" tall plant in a 3" pot). I might try again in a more protected area next year.

Thanks greendesert, for answering. After I didn't get any response for a day or so, I drifted away. I figured that as soon as the weather cooled off and people were thinking about planting again, the boards would pick up.
I actually planted all 4 of my grapes vines in reflected sun situations. The book Plants for Dry Climates said they would do ok there so that's what I did. So far, they are doing very well but I do have them on drip that runs every other night right now since everything on that line was put in new this past Spring.
You mention that you are interested in trying Thomcord too. I found that they also sell these plants at L.E. Cooke so what I am going to do is see if Baker Nursery will order me a plant (as well as several other things:). You may want to try them too. I have ordered lots of roses this way from them and they are great.
I think that I will take my cue from greenthumb and maybe plant this plant in a cooler place.