Where There's a Winery, There's a Way — Even in the Desert

Dear Pros,

You have special projects editor Lucy Simon here. Over the course of my four-plus years at Food & Wine, I've gotten the chance to work on some truly incredible projects. But last summer I got to do something I never expected. I found myself stomping on a literal metric ton of grapes with my bare feet…for work.

On assignment for our annual fall wine and travel issue (on newsstands now), I visited Los Milics winery in Elgin, Arizona, and my time there forever altered my understanding of how wine and hospitality can intertwine.

Pavle Milić is the winemaker and visionary behind Los Milics, a winery in Arizona's Sonoita American Viticultural Area that does so much more than just produce world-class wines in the heart of the Sonoran desert (though it does that very well). Milić is a lifelong restaurant pro who caught the hospitality bug working as a busser at his parents' restaurants in Scottsdale. He made wine in Napa Valley, founded his celebrated restaurant FnB in Scottsdale in 2009, then co-founded Los Milics in 2018.

Due to licensing complexities, wineries in tasting rooms in the United States are often only allowed to serve a limited selection of snacks, and don't have the ability to create a robust menu. Milić, for whom hospitality and the guest experience are paramount, knew he had to to bring great food to his winery.

In 2024, Los Milics launched a lodging program where visitors can stay the night in beautiful casitas made from shipping containers outfitted with kitchenettes and bathrooms. This addition allows the winery to have a full-service restaurant called The Biscuit, headed up by chef Trevor Routman. There you'll find Los Milics' wines, but also a tight list of classic cocktails and benchmark bottles from around the world. "In a 20-mile radius of Elgin, I promise you," says Milić, "you're not going to find another Vesper Martini, or Negroni, or glass of Raveneau Chablis."

During my visit we joined the crew ("la Cuadrilla") just after they started harvesting at midnight. I saw firsthand how Milić sees this team, especially his vineyard foreman, as partners in the winemaking process and extends his generous spirit to them. He takes care to provide good housing, knowing how hard it is to be away from their families, and pays them ten times what they would earn back in Mexico. This foundation of hospitality, of taking care of one another, has meant that much of the crew return year after year for harvest. It also seeps into the wine. Case in point, the reason for the wee-hours work is that the conditions are better for the health and wellbeing of the workers than blazing sunlight, but Milić also found that starting with cooler grapes results in an even better end product. Those they picked that night (and that I stomped later) became an award-winning rosé. You can read the full story on foodandwine.com.

The Los Milics vineyard is just 30 minutes north of Agua Prieto, Mexico, and we could see the warm glow of the town's lights breaking through the pitch-black night. To get there back in August 2024 we had to cross a number of border patrol stops, and I know this has only intensified in the year since. Milić calls his crew, "some of the most hard, hardest working salt of the earth, amazing human beings that are so grateful to be in this country and have the ability to enter legally," but of course, the political climate can change on a whim. By leading with hospitality on all fronts, Milić reminds us to take care of one another and find a bit more beauty and meaning in the everyday.

Cheers,
Lucy