Entrepreneur turns lark into successful wine venture

Bijal Shah is a man with many passions.

There are his businesses, one of which involves working with haute couture to manufacture fashions in India, his ancestral home. Another is his involvement in developing new high-tech companies overseas. There is his passion for his wife, Sinead, a United Airlines co-pilot, and their newborn daughter, Kennedy Bijal Shah.

And then there is Daríghe, a blended red wine he said he conceived out of his passion for powerful "old-school" California cabernets and elegant Bordeaux he's collected on his frequent travels.

Sinead, whose mother was born in Ireland, gave Daríghe — pronounced DARE-ig — its name from a Gaelic word that means "red."

What it has in common with the other passionate reds, Shah said, is that they are all well-made wines that can be savored young, yet still have room to improve with age.

Collectors and wine stewards at several upscale Seattle-area restaurants apparently agree, considering their vote-by-pocketbook purchases of the wine.

The 39-year-old Shah and his uncle, Tom Campbell, made 100 cases of the 1998 vintage under their Woodhouse Family Vineyards partnership; that vintage sold out three months after its release in 2001, Shah said. And the 400 cases of 1999 Daríghe Proprietor's Blend Columbia Valley Red Wine released in November for a recommended retail price of $50 a bottle have also sold out.

A mailing list for customers who get first crack at purchases was nonexistent two years ago. Today, the list stands at 560 buyers and growing, Shah said.

"When we set out to make Daríghe, it was specifically to make us a wine that was up to our standards: big and bold, and sexy at the back end of it," Shah said. "We also wanted something that could lay down in the cellar for 10 years."

Campbell, a 1979 viticulture and enology graduate from the University of California, Davis, uses hand-picked grapes from vines he helped plant in the 1980s at Konnowac Vineyards, southeast of Yakima. The wine is made at Horizon's Edge, a winery near Zillah that Campbell founded in 1985 and sold in 1999.

Shah said he will eventually increase production to a maximum of 3,000 cases once he builds his own production facility in either Walla Walla or on Red Mountain, near Benton City. He's also planning to build a cellaring, bottling and tasting facility in the Puget Sound area so he can keep an eye on the final stages of production and have a nearby office from which to conduct sales and marketing. Bijal Shah said he knew starting his own brand was going to become more than just a hobby after watching his 38-year-old wife work for the first time in the cold of winter at Horizon's Edge, he said.

"She's taken this thing by the horns — bottling and hand capsuling and labeling — and she's freezing and absolutely having a ball," he said.

Sinead Shah said she plans to become more involved in the business as it grows.

Her husband said he intended to make a wine that he likes and would be proud to give to friends and business associates around the world, even if he never sold a bottle.

Friendships are another of Shah's many passions, so much so that he's expanded Woodhouse Family Vineyard's line to include single varietal wines named after friends.

He and Campbell last year released 100 cases of 1999 Dussek Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon named after Steve Dussek, retired chief operating officer of Nextel. They also made 100 cases of 1999 Maghie Cellars Merlot, named after Seattle lawyer Mark Maghie. They plan to increase the quantity to 3,000 cases for each wine.

Dussek said he met Shah in 1989 when Dussek lived above Wild Ginger, a Seattle Asian-style restaurant where Shah often dined. Shah's heritage is Indian, but he was born in Mombasa, Kenya, where his parents were living and working. In 1974, his family immigrated to the United States and settled in Seattle.

"We were just learning about wine," recalled Dussek, who now lives in Chevy Chase, Md. "To both of us at that point, it was a good glass of wine if it was red."

Last year, Dussek asked Shah to be his best man at his August wedding in Virginia.

"His gift was to offer 10 cases of Dussek wine to Annie and me at our wedding," Dussek said. "To be able to serve wine at your wedding with your name on it, and to have that connection with Bijal, it was just wonderful."

Thomas P. Skeen can be reached at 509-525-3300 or by e-mail at tskeen@ubnet.com.