Oscar Ramos and his staff at Ramos Torres Winery in Kingsburg have one goal — to ensure their product is “double-gold good.”

The Ramos Torres Winery is a 2014 award-winner in the San Francisco Chronicle’s wine competition. The winery’s 2011 “Branches,” a cabernet blend, won “Double Gold” in the competition.

The winery’s owner, Ramos, 34, is a 2003 Fresno State graduate with a degree in enology. He began making his own wine in 2005 and, the winery opened in 2008. In 2011, the winery had its first full vintage batch.

Though he considers winemaking to be both an art and a science, when Ramos first entered Fresno State in 1998, he didn’t know the first thing about winemaking.

He entered Fresno State as a business major, but after three semesters he wandered into the enology department.

“I didn’t have any knowledge about wine, and I didn’t have a level of appreciation other than I knew that I liked it,” Ramos said.

It only took a five-minute conversation with Dr. Carlos Muller, now a professor emeritus in enology, to convince Ramos to begin the program.

“He didn’t give me a lot of explanation other than saying, ‘You’re here for a reason.’”

Ramos said the fact that Fresno State’s winery was making headlines, and was the only university winery in the country at the time, drew him in.

He quickly learned to love the department.

“I enjoyed the program, maybe not the chemistry and long hours, but the camaraderie and relationships. I liked the social atmosphere the wine industry provides.

“I liked being able to enjoy the product, understanding the dynamics and what it means to appreciate wine.”

After he graduated, Ramos began working at Cedar View Winery in Sanger with owner Jim Haun.

Haun called Ramos a “conscientious winemaker.”

“You have to be attentive to details, and being able to multitask in a given time frame. I tried to teach Oscar not to do too much at one time, and I think he learned from it,” Haun said.

After working with Haun for one year, Ramos decided he wanted to try his hand at making his own wine. Haun let him use Cedar View’s facility, and in 2005 Ramos made his first 200 cases.

Ramos and Haun continued to work and have success together. After a few years, they were making too many barrels for Cedar View’s capacity and Ramos bought his own facility.

Every aspect of winemaking is done at the Ramos Torres Winery in Kingsburg — crushing, blending, bottling and labeling.

Ramos said owning a small business comes with numerous challenges and difficulties, “But we’re looking to do it right.”

Though it is small, the Ramos Torres Winery is expanding. Ramos bought a vineyard in Coarsegold, now named Love Ranch, LLC.

When Ramos bought the vineyard, it was poorly maintained and on the verge of being destroyed.

“Now we have more grapes than we can handle,” Ramos said.

By growing his own grapes, Ramos is utilizing what he learned at Fresno State and from Haun.

“Every winemaker should be doing the best to grow the best grapes possible,” Haun said. “Don’t make mistakes, and don’t mess around with the grapes. If they’re good in the vineyard, they’ll be good in the wine.”

Working with grapes is something Ramos enjoys, partly because he’s been doing it his whole life.

Ramos worked in vineyards growing up with his parents, who came to the U.S. from Mexico. He also worked in the vineyards during his time at Fresno State.

“I was always involved in the operations of the vineyard,” he said. “That’s experience not a lot of people have.”

“It’s enjoyable to see the full process. I have a sense of appreciation that’s greater because of them,” Ramos said about his parents. “It wasn’t always pleasant, but it was rewarding.”

That’s not the only role his parents play in the winery. The winery is named after Ramos’ parents — Ramos for his father’s last name and Torres for his mother’s maiden name.

The winery’s marketing director, Adriana Espinoza, said that the logo is a combination of Ramos’ parents’ astrological signs, the Libra and Virgo.

The winery has been producing about 2,500 cases of wine annually, Espinoza said, and sells to distributors in Wisconsin and Chicago.

Espinoza said the winery is trying to emulate French Rhône wines.

Ramos and the staff are gearing up to taste samples of the 120 barrels at the winery next week in what Ramos calls a tasting “marathon.” The blends infuse hints of rose petals, wet earth and cracked black pepper, all of which contribute to the acid, tannins and mouth feel of the wine.

“If I didn’t engage and interact, we wouldn’t be able to make a better product,” Ramos said.

Said Espinoza: “That’s what makes it double-gold good.”