Tangles in the Vine

The wine operation was almost sold late last year. The three separate bidders were Tareq Salahi; his friend and real estate agent Casey Margenau; and a Florida-based limited liability corporation that the younger Salahi said was linked to O'Neal, now a center for the Phoenix Suns. Perry Rogers, O'Neal's agent, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

According to Tareq Salahi, O'Neal and his partners backed out of the deal with the elder Salahis after the investors learned they would not obtain the Oasis trademark or wine.

Margenau, who had introduced Tareq Salahi to Michaele at Cafe Milano in Georgetown, emerged as the potential lead buyer, offering to lease the property back to his friend. But he backed out, too.

"When I looked at the disarray of the property and vines, and looked at the financials, I said, 'Tareq, you can't make this work. You couldn't pay the rent. You'd be defaulting to me, and we wouldn't be friends,' " Margenau said.

In June, Tareq Salahi met with another potential investor from Hong Kong. The elder Salahis' real estate agent, Lynn Wiley, showed up for the meeting. In a lawsuit filed in August in Fauquier County Circuit Court, Tareq Salahi alleged that Wiley defamed and embarrassed him in front of the investor by saying he "did not know what he was talking about." The Hong Kong investor, Tareq Salahi said, subsequently bowed out. The son is seeking $3.6 million in damages.

In court papers, Wiley responded that her comments were "insufficient" to support a defamation claim. To this day, Tareq Salahi is wistful about O'Neal's visit to the winery last year.

"I would still love to do a deal with him, and it could be a better deal," Tareq Salahi said. "He came to Virginia because of a personal interest. I showed him my prospectus, but his businesspeople were going to deal directly with [my mother]. He's a very pleasant gentleman. He's articulate about wines, and they weren't looking to buy a vineyard and winery [just] to say they owned one. He loved the big reds."

Tareq Salahi said he is considering teaming up with investors in Northern Virginia or Los Angeles to buy his parents' share for $3 million. He wants to start growing grapes again, renovate the tasting rooms and transform the property's residence into a bed-and-breakfast, but he worries about the credit crisis. "Honestly, and candidly, we are 80 percent there with the investors in Northern Virginia," he said, declining to identify them. "Their hang-ups are the economy, their liquidity. And they ask, 'Will the mother still be there?' "

So the Salahis wait for a sale. One sunny October day, the property, which normally would have been busy with tourists and harvesting, was silent. As the parents walked past empty Italian concrete vats, they pointed to some barrels of old wine. "It's just vinegar now," Dirgham Salahi said.

As for the son, he has high hopes for the Salahi saga. He said he has met twice with a TV producer about using the dispute as the basis for a movie or miniseries.