Ramon and Sandra Guerrero met at a Santa Barbara school dance as teenagers. Upon his graduation, Ramon left to attend Carleton College in Minnesota, but Sandra remained behind.

She had a secret power, however: Her grandmother, named Amada (“beloved” in Spanish), taught Sandra to make homemade pastries to send to Ramon while he was away.

“My grandmother kept us together,” she said.

Years later, the couple — now married with three grown children — named their winery Amada Cellars to honor her grandmother, and they’ve opened their first tasting room.

When he returned to the West Coast, Ramon chose the University of California, Davis, for medical school. It was in nearby Napa where the couple first had a formal wine tasting. They took a picnic lunch with friends to Sequoia Grove, enjoyed themselves and pondered what a future in winemaking might entail.

Today, their home and organic vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley has two sequoia trees.

In the years between Davis and their current home in Santa Ynez, the Guerreros relocated to Texas, where Ramon first practiced general surgery and then specialized in anesthesiology, first in Galveston, then in Dallas and Plano, where he had a 20-year practice.

The couple had three children, two of whom are also physicians: radiologist Dahlia Guerrero, who specializes in breast imaging in Santa Barbara and Solvang, and internal medicine specialist Esteban Guerrero, who recently accepted the position of associate medical director at the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians medical facility, according to his father.

The couple’s youngest son, Daniel, is an Air Force F-35 stealth fighter pilot.

Ramon and Sandra Guerrero have two grandchildren, Serena and Zachary. Serena is intent on helping Ramon in the vineyard, especially when it comes to eating grapes straight off the vines.

The family vineyard and home is near the end of Meadowlark Road, right up against the Santa Ynez River.

“Our vineyard has its own microclimate; it’s both colder and warmer than our neighbors’ properties,” he said.

The vineyard is the southernmost property in the Los Olivos District AVA.

“The marine layer flows right up the river, and our grapes hang on the vine about a month or a month and half longer than do those of our neighbors,” he said. “The grapes need more ripening time here.”

After planting three acres in 2002, the Guerreros’ first vintage was that of 2005. While that was “limited,” the family got a full harvest in 2006, he said. They initially sold fruit to other producers, but today, keep everything for their own label.

Production is about 800 cases annually, with aging about two to three years in barrel. As years have passed, “we’ve gotten more patient” with the aging process, Ramon Guerrero said with a laugh.

Pre-pandemic, the Amada Cellars label was known as Meadowlark Vineyard, named for the family vineyard on the namesake road. “Then, we started thinking” of a more appropriate name to honor Sandra’s grandmother, Ramon Guerrero said.

If Meadowlark began as mostly blends, Amada has kept those but added some single varietals, among them sauvignon blanc, a newer varietal at Meadowlark. James Suckling awarded 91 points to that wine.

The San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition recognized three vintages of Amada Cellars’ syrah noir with medals: The 2016 earned a silver, the 2019 a gold and the 2020 a double gold, according to Guerrero.

“We have a plaque in our new tasting room for these wines,” he said.

The tasting room, at 490 Bell St., Suite 104 in Los Alamos, is open from noon to 6 p.m. Friday through Sunday, and is staffed by Sandra and Ramon Guerrero or their niece. They chose Los Alamos for friends who reside there, and for the town’s plentiful restaurants.

“Los Alamos’ residents have been very welcoming to us,” he said.

For more information, visit amadacellars.com.