Los Milics Vineyards, the much-lauded Arizona winery helmed by winemaker and FnB co-owner Pavle Milic, opened its new expanded tasting room this weekend in Old Town Scottsdale.
Located on the southwest corner of Marshall Way and Third Avenue, the venue boasts two street-facing patios, a private dining area, a contemporary bar facing an open kitchen and triple the dining capacity as the original Scottsdale tasting room, which was located across the street.
Spanning more than 2,800 square feet with about 1,000 square feet of patio space, it also has room for a kitchen, allowing the team to add a food menu.
The opening comes a year after its projected debut date and more than a month after the original tasting room closed in order to get the new one ready. For Milic, his longtime vision is starting to become reality.
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“Being able to offer reliable food to go with our wines has always been the plan,” says Milic, who founded Los Milics with his wife Ita Milic, and business partners Mo and Stephanie Garfinkle in 2018. “To bring this to the epicenter of Old Town adds to our story and produces a rich and more robust narrative in a place like Scottsdale.”
The larger space allows the Los Milics team to craft food to pair with their wines.
Space to sip and savor
A walnut veneer horseshoe-shaped bar is the focal point of the room. Customers who score any of the 12 bar seats can sip on Los Milics’ award-winning wines while getting a front-row seat to the action of the open kitchen run by chef Nico Cornelius.
Before joining the Los Milics team, the chef worked with Bourbon & Bones Chophouse and event producers Cloth & Flame, and did in-house private dinners.
At Los Milics, he’s stretching his skills with wine-worthy sandwiches and salads, as well as charcuterie and cheese plates. Cornelius is also developing a dessert selection.
The star of the food lineup promises to be freshly hand-pulled mozzarella. This was inspired by one of Milic’s favorite Los Angeles restaurants, Osteria Mozza, a Michelin-starred eatery known for its fresh-pulled mozzarella program.
“Who doesn’t like freshly pulled mozzarella? Little kids like mozzarella. Older people like mozzarella,” Milic says. “We wanted to double down and focus on a hyper-niche food that would pair well with our wines.”
Old Town architecture and design firm Chen Suchart Studio, which is responsible for Los Milics’s show-stopping tasting room at its flagship Elgin winery in southern Arizona, also took the reins for this location.
The space was previously used as a salon. Now, a dark, moody gray palette is jazzed up with pops of color, including a gold overhang above the bar and an adjacent pink nook housing a cozy table for two beneath a pink arch.
A curtain separates the main dining room from a private party area with space for groups of up to 20. French doors provide access to the patio that faces Marshall Way, where a comfy couch and stools along a low wall serve as the perfect people-watching spot for customers enjoying wine and bites. A community table on the Third Avenue patio seats 12.
“Who doesn’t like sitting outside, in the sun drinking wine, pinky raised, al fresco?” Milic says.
Los Milics new Old Town tasting room previously housed salons.
Salon setbacks
Having a Scottsdale presence for the Southern Arizona winery was an objective since day one. Los Milics co-founder Mo Garfinkle had been eyeing the property for a while, and was drawn to the dual patios. When it finally became available in April 2025, relocation plans began.
However, the building had been used only for salons over the years. It lacked the infrastructure, including plumbing and electrical, needed to support a food and beverage business. Converting everything consumed much more time than anticipated.
After some setbacks and the completion of required adjustments, the tasting room was finally ready for guests. The new tasting room will be running on all cylinders in time for the launch of Los Milics’ new canned wine label, Lomi.
Slated for release in early 2027, Lomi will feature four wines: Chill Red, an easy-drinking carbonic blend that’s best served cold; Easy White, a white blend that’s on the sweet side; and an unnamed sparkling and a low-ABV wine. In the future, expect to see a non-alcoholic version.
Peter Shikany, president of Phoenix-based P.S. Studios design firm, created the branding for Los Milics Vineyards and did the same for Lomi.
The look will match the more playful persona of the new label that’s more affordable than its big brother and geared toward a younger demographic. The team hopes it will inspire non-wine drinkers to give Los Milics a try.
Milic, who has been one of Arizona wine’s most powerful advocates for 17 years, acknowledges that the state’s wine industry is not the anomaly it was a decade or two ago. Still, he views his winery and tasting room as an extension of that initial advocacy, which has grown over time as he has evolved from wine seller to winemaker.
He hopes the new tasting room will draw attention not just to Los Milics, but the Arizona wine industry overall, especially for visitors who aren’t aware it even exists.
“We are just one of the people doing an amazing job. To add our grain of salt to what it means to grow and make wine in Arizona… it’s an honor,” Milic says. “It sounds trite, but that has always been the intention, to show people from outside the state’s lines what we do and what is possible in Arizona.”
Los Milics Vineyards
7045 E. Third Ave., Scottsdale
Dining and Cooking