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Colombian-born/Scottsdale-raised Pavle ²Ñ¾±±ô¾±Ä‡ was one of the first writers in Arizona to shine a light on the state's wine industry in the mid-2000s with his "Romancing the Grape" column for Phoenix New Times.

He also was the first to curate an all-Arizona wines list for his award-winning restaurant in Scottsdale, a collaboration with chef-partner Charleen Badman that they opened in 2009.

In 2012, he joined the winemakers that he wrote about when he produced his initial vintage, a red wine blend he called Los Milics that he made in collaboration with ' owners Todd and Kelly Bostock.

The 54-year-old became passionate about winemaking during the four years he spent in Napa soaking up everything he could from his roommate, winemaker Tadeo Borchardt.

It was during this time that ²Ñ¾±±ô¾±Ä‡ had an epiphany of sorts.

He was driving along the Silverado Trail heading to Napa along a route that passes the neighboring ZD Wines and Mumm Napa wineries.

"It was like the afternoon, and it was bucolic and pastoral, and the windows were down, and the aroma (of) fermentation was pervasive in the air," he recalled one afternoon in late May while sitting in the dining room of his months-old downtown Tucson Los Milics Restaurant and Tasting Room. "I should say, I was sober; I had not smoked anything or drank anything, but I had the audacity to say this to myself, in a very, very quiet whisper: 'One day, I don't know when or how, I'm going to be in this business'."

In his Scottsdale restaurant one night not long after releasing that first vintage, he was waiting tables at FnB when a customer, Mo Garfinkel, asked him what he planned to do with his wine.

"I answered aspirationally," he recalled, telling Garfunkel that once his four kids went off to college, "the wife and I will buy a little chunk of land in Sonoita and Elgin, and I will buy some used winemaking equipment so I can grow old gracefully outdoors. And I left it at that." 

After dinner, Garfinkel handed ²Ñ¾±±ô¾±Ä‡ his business card.

"Listen, if you'd like to pursue this dream of yours sooner, I'd love to be your business partner," ²Ñ¾±±ô¾±Ä‡ recalled him saying. 

In that first year, they made wine for themselves while ²Ñ¾±±ô¾±Ä‡Â continued working alongside the Bostocks in Sonoita. He credits the couple with his boots-in-the-vines wine education; he had no formal training aside from taking a class at UC Davis, the country's preeminent oenology program, and one at Yavapai College, the only school in the state that teaches wine making.

"Todd and Kelly were influential that first year. ... I was never shy to ask dumb questions, so I think I just had the wherewithal to feel like I'm ignorant and dumb all over again," he said. "But that's the beauty of hanging out in the outskirts of what you know you've never done before."

²Ñ¾±±ô¾±Ä‡ and Garfunkel bought 20 acres in Elgin in 2018 and established the estate vineyard with 12 acres under vine. They acquired another 50 acres under vine in Elfrida, about 20 miles from Elgin.

Not long after breaking ground on the Elgin tasting room, designed by the critically-acclaimed Phoenix architects Chen + Suchart Studio, Los Milics won its first major state wine award: first place "Best In Show" in the 2022 azcentral Arizona Wine Competition for its 2019 red wine blend.

Other awards followed including the tasting room, which opened in 2023, being ranked three years running among the country's top tasting rooms. Last year, it came in No. 4 among USA Today's 10 best wine tasting rooms in the country.

One of the biggest coups came last September, when the winery was featured in a 12-page spread in Food and Wine magazine's travel edition.

Elevating Arizona has been a priority since he and Badman opened FnB. 

"We  didn't want Arizona ever, at least what we were doing, to feel like some weird lagging indicator of what's going on in the cool places," he said. "Until we pay attention to what's happening in our backyard and put a spotlight on those people, nobody else is going to pay attention. You just have to be proud of your whims and the idiosyncratic things that make Arizona, Arizona."