Wichitans Dave and Natalie Sollo are seen in their favorite room, the wine cellar, where they age their homemade wine. The couple have started the Grace Hill Winery, a dream Dave had had for 10 or 15 years. Their first wine sales took place earlier this year.

Wichita ? Before Wichitans Dave and Natalie Sollo went to a land auction in March 2003, “Dave told me he just wanted some property in the country that he could mess around on,” Natalie said.

Until they were driving away from the 160 acres they’d just bought, he didn’t mention that he’d also wanted to start a vineyard for 10 or 15 years.

It’s grown into Grace Hill Winery, and with their first wine sales earlier this year, the two physicians — he’s an anesthesiologist; she’s a pediatrician — now are commercial vintners as well. They planted their first vines the year after they bought the land, which is about 2 1/2 miles west of Whitewater.

“Those plants grow really well. Too well,” Dave said.

An education in wine

The land had been a dairy farm for decades, and the well-fertilized ground made the vines — though not the grapes — thrive. That was the first of many lessons.

The Sollos have been oenophiles for more than 25 years and have visited wineries in the United States, Italy and France. But there’s a big difference between consuming wine and making it, Natalie said.

They took online courses, visited more wineries, read books and quizzed other members of the Kansas Grape Growers and Winemakers Association. Both were chemistry majors before medical school. That, plus medicine’s exacting nature, gave them a head start in wine-making, they think.

They’ve added vines every year; a final 700 plants will go in this spring, which will give them more than 3,500 plants spread over seven acres.

‘Stuff that will survive’

The Sollos have planted eight varietals. Several of the grapes bear names unfamiliar to wine novices.

“We grow the stuff that will survive here,” Natalie said, which means there aren’t many Cabernet Sauvignon plants. They fell victim to the weather. Grapes are threatened by disease and by pests. Dave pointed to the tracks of what he called “hooved locusts” — deer through the vineyard. Turkeys and other birds also like grapes.

The Sollos practice medicine full time, but even in winter they never really get away from the wine business.

In February, they’ll bottle. In March, they’ll prune. In April, they’ll plant. Summer’s duties will hit like a tidal wave before harvest, in August and September. It takes three to five years to get a crop from the vines. The Sollos made their first wines, for their own use, in 2006.

Bottling wines

Until all the required state and federal licensing is in place, growers can’t ferment commercially. The Sollos got their liquor licenses late last year.

They bottled their first commercial wines — the whites — around Memorial Day. The reds were done in late summer and the Cabernet Sauvignon about a month ago. The wines age in the bottles for at least a month before the Sollos consider them ready to drink.

Nearly everything at the vineyard is done by hand, such as putting the plants in protective “grow tubes,” training the vines and harvesting. Their long hours in medicine have allowed them to pursue the winery.

“You have to be passionate about this, or you’d never do it,” Dave said. That’s the first requirement.

The second is capital.

“I don’t think there’s anything about it that’s not expensive,” he said, from the grapes to the equipment to the legalities.

“And then you have to have a strong back” for the planting and harvesting.

They see their new endeavor as a perfect blend with their medical careers. “Our vision is to make the best wine that we can,” Natalie said.