When Allen Shoup retired in 2001 as CEO of Stimson Lane, corporate parent of Washington wine giant Chateau Ste. Michelle, he understood he was a manager, not a winemaker. But he wanted to apply what he had learned from some of the best minds in the business to a new kind of winemaking partnership.

"I knew I didn't really want to retire," Shoup says, "and the wine industry is the perfect industry not to retire in. I knew all these octogenarians -- Ernest Gallo, Andre Tchelicheff, the wine writer Leon Adams -- who were still communicating about wine and winemaking at a level that was beyond anything I was used to. I thought maybe I could still be useful."

The Long Shadows consortium, seven wineries (the company calls them "brands") under one roof, is the manifestation of Shoup's dream. It is unlike any other wine corporation in the United States and perhaps the world. Last fall, Food & Wine magazine named Long Shadows its Winery of the Year, calling it "groundbreaking in a way -- a hothouse of different winemakers -- great winemakers, doing extraordinary wines in a variety of formats."

Designed by Shoup himself, the classically squared Long Shadows building is set into a sandy hillside west of Walla Walla like an elegant, modern table -- "a clean box," Shoup says. "I didn't want to give the impression that I wanted to impress people."

Although Long Shadows won't be part of the tasting-room circuit -- it will only be open to the public on a few occasions or by appointment -- the wines being produced at the winery undoubtedly will lend even more cachet to a region that is growing in reputation and popularity among connoisseurs and ordinary wine lovers alike.

"The genesis for Long Shadows goes back to Robert Mondavi, who I got to know when I worked for Gallo in the 1970s and who is still a good friend," says Shoup. "In 1978 he and the Baron de Rothschild came out with Opus One, their joint project in Napa Valley. It instantly hit me as an ingenious thing to do. California was still fighting back then for recognition and Opus One helped put Napa wine on the map -- I give a lot of credit to Bob, who always promoted Napa ahead of his own wine. But if Bob was building a mountain in California, up here in Washington we were still in a chasm."

Though Washington produces more wine than any other state in the U.S. except California, recognition of the overall quality of its wines has been slow to arrive. A few cult bottles are well-known among connoisseurs -- Quilceda Creek's perfect 100-point score last year from Wine Spectator for one of its luscious Cabernet Sauvignons wasn't a surprise in the wine world, and high-90s scores for Cayuse's dense, regal Syrahs have become expected. But still, Washington fights for a place well below several California appellations and even Oregon's Pinot Noirs. Shoup thought he could change that.

He had experimented with winemaking partnerships while overseeing Ste. Michelle. Its Eroica Riesling is made under the supervision of visiting winemaker Ernst Loosen of the Dr. Loosen estate in Germany, and a joint venture with Marchesi Antinori resulted in Col Solare, a spinoff within Stimson Lane that produces a distinctive Cabernet.

Wine is "the world's most competitive consumer product," says Shoup. "To survive, you have to have something distinctive." With Mondavi's encouragement, he began to seek out and gather the best winemaking talent in the world -- Michel Rolland, arguably the most influential winemaker working today; Agustin Huneeus Sr., who has won accolades from California to Chile for his emphasis on terroir; Randy Dunn, producer of legendary California Cabernet Sauvignon; Philippe Melka, a University of Bordeaux graduate who makes the coveted Bryant Family Vineyards Cabernet in California; Armin Diel, the acclaimed Riesling producer at Schlossgut Diel in Germany; Ambrogio and Giovanni Folonari, a father-son team behind some of Tuscany's finest wines; and John Duval, who made his reputation as the winemaker of Penfolds Grange, Australia's highly regarded Shiraz. "Collectively, we must have 300 years of winemaking experience" at the consortium, says Shoup.