manner, “Oh, yeah, well, I’m dealing with the mother.”
Michaele quietly telephoned Tareq to come back to the winery from a nearby satellite vineyard. She quickly explained what was happening and who was sitting in their tasting room saying he was about to buy the place.
Upon his return, Tareq quickly dismissed his wife’s suggestion to have Shaq, or his Uncle Mike, his business manager, sign a non-disclosure agreement before they all sat down to talk. Instead, Tareq immediately laid out his glossy prospectus brochure in front of the basketball great and began to enthusiastically tell him all about his future plans for renovation and expansion of the property.
“I told him about the welcoming center I wanted to build, the spa, the inn—all of it,” Tareq sheepishly admits. Michaele adds that Shaq interjected his own ideas for a Superman labeled wine. “He said he had Superman tattoos and I think he thinks of himself as Superman too, so he wanted to make a wine he could name after that.”
“We went out to dinner that night and Michaele and I thought, ‘Wow, this is the solution to our problem!’ We’d go into partnership with Shaquille O’Neal. Corinne could get her money and leave us alone. The celebrity cache, the ability to expand … it was going to be great!” Tareq said.
It wasn’t great. Michaele says despite Shaq’s verbal assurance to them that he’d back off from dealing solely with Corinne Salahi, he did not. Her asking price had been $6.5 million dollars. Shaq’s business group reportedly offered Mrs. Salahi less than $5 million and she took it. The deal was so close to being done that the court appointed receiver showed up one afternoon and told Michaele she had just minutes to vacate the property.
“I was sitting behind a desk and when I looked up and there was Mr. Thorpe with Sheriff Officers. He said to me, ‘this place has been sold you have ten minutes to gather up what you can and leave.’ I was stunned. I tried to say, ‘but I live here. My apartment, my medications ….’ But they didn’t want to listen.”
Tareq was off property at the time. When Michaele reached him via cell phone, Tareq alerted their attorney and they both quickly converged on the vineyard. “I told Michaele, don’t do anything. Just wait for us. Once we got there, our attorney told everyone in no uncertain terms that we weren’t going anywhere. And we didn’t.”
The whole mess wound up in court. O’Neal’s company, Tuscan Ventures, was pressing ahead with the plan to buy Oasis Vineyard. Tareq had quickly assembled a competitive deal with a friend, businessman Casey Margenau, which they hoped the court would approve, rather than accepting the deal of their adversary, the NBA superstar. The younger Salahis vividly remember going to the courthouse that late November day in 2007.
“We were clutching hands and Tareq said to me, ‘Oh, Michaele, I’m going to lose everything to a basketball player.’ I felt so awful for him. Tareq had helped his dad live out his dream by going to the best university for wine. He loved that place. Winemaking was in Tareq’s blood. But I thought he was right. We were going to lose to Shaq that day.”
Miraculously the judge ruled in Tareq and Michaele’s favor, refusing to strip the son of his legacy. Though this appeared to be a huge victory, the deal with Margenau would ultimately fall apart and throw the fate of Oasis Vineyards into even more hellish limbo.
On December 11, 2008, as the U.S. economy was hurtling toward recession, Corinne Salahi unilaterally placed Oasis Vineyards, Inc. into bankruptcy.
“She didn’t have the right to do that,” Tareq says through clenched teeth. “My father gave me power of attorney in 2006. I am a co-owner of the business. She had no right to do what she did without including me.”
Corinne Salahi maintains that the power of attorney her husband signed over to her in 2002 supersedes the document her son has, as Dirgham
Michaele quietly telephoned Tareq to come back to the winery from a nearby satellite vineyard. She quickly explained what was happening and who was sitting in their tasting room saying he was about to buy the place.
Upon his return, Tareq quickly dismissed his wife’s suggestion to have Shaq, or his Uncle Mike, his business manager, sign a non-disclosure agreement before they all sat down to talk. Instead, Tareq immediately laid out his glossy prospectus brochure in front of the basketball great and began to enthusiastically tell him all about his future plans for renovation and expansion of the property.
“I told him about the welcoming center I wanted to build, the spa, the inn—all of it,” Tareq sheepishly admits. Michaele adds that Shaq interjected his own ideas for a Superman labeled wine. “He said he had Superman tattoos and I think he thinks of himself as Superman too, so he wanted to make a wine he could name after that.”
“We went out to dinner that night and Michaele and I thought, ‘Wow, this is the solution to our problem!’ We’d go into partnership with Shaquille O’Neal. Corinne could get her money and leave us alone. The celebrity cache, the ability to expand … it was going to be great!” Tareq said.
It wasn’t great. Michaele says despite Shaq’s verbal assurance to them that he’d back off from dealing solely with Corinne Salahi, he did not. Her asking price had been $6.5 million dollars. Shaq’s business group reportedly offered Mrs. Salahi less than $5 million and she took it. The deal was so close to being done that the court appointed receiver showed up one afternoon and told Michaele she had just minutes to vacate the property.
“I was sitting behind a desk and when I looked up and there was Mr. Thorpe with Sheriff Officers. He said to me, ‘this place has been sold you have ten minutes to gather up what you can and leave.’ I was stunned. I tried to say, ‘but I live here. My apartment, my medications ….’ But they didn’t want to listen.”
Tareq was off property at the time. When Michaele reached him via cell phone, Tareq alerted their attorney and they both quickly converged on the vineyard. “I told Michaele, don’t do anything. Just wait for us. Once we got there, our attorney told everyone in no uncertain terms that we weren’t going anywhere. And we didn’t.”
The whole mess wound up in court. O’Neal’s company, Tuscan Ventures, was pressing ahead with the plan to buy Oasis Vineyard. Tareq had quickly assembled a competitive deal with a friend, businessman Casey Margenau, which they hoped the court would approve, rather than accepting the deal of their adversary, the NBA superstar. The younger Salahis vividly remember going to the courthouse that late November day in 2007.
“We were clutching hands and Tareq said to me, ‘Oh, Michaele, I’m going to lose everything to a basketball player.’ I felt so awful for him. Tareq had helped his dad live out his dream by going to the best university for wine. He loved that place. Winemaking was in Tareq’s blood. But I thought he was right. We were going to lose to Shaq that day.”
Miraculously the judge ruled in Tareq and Michaele’s favor, refusing to strip the son of his legacy. Though this appeared to be a huge victory, the deal with Margenau would ultimately fall apart and throw the fate of Oasis Vineyards into even more hellish limbo.
On December 11, 2008, as the U.S. economy was hurtling toward recession, Corinne Salahi unilaterally placed Oasis Vineyards, Inc. into bankruptcy.
“She didn’t have the right to do that,” Tareq says through clenched teeth. “My father gave me power of attorney in 2006. I am a co-owner of the business. She had no right to do what she did without including me.”
Corinne Salahi maintains that the power of attorney her husband signed over to her in 2002 supersedes the document her son has, as Dirgham
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