Tor is an unusual name, and belonging to a former marketing wizard makes me suspicious about the origin.

“My parents were bohemians,” Tor laughs. “My father was a playwright. He wrote ‘Cry Havoc.’ And my mother was a painter and a muse for her four children. Tor comes from the play ‘Hi Tor’ by Maxwell Anderson, which my father admired. Tor, in this reference's origin, is Proto-Celtic meaning ‘high rock, hill, or tower.’”

Even though Tor has devoted most of his life to wine, he was not to the château born. Following his artistic upbringing, he started a music venue in Santa Barbara and discovered wine by happenstance there. 

“I had a jazz club in the early ‘70s and was introduced to a group of wine aficionados,” he tells me. “I liked to cook, and they brought along the best wines imported to the States at the time. First growths and grand cru Burgundy rarely cost more than $20 in those days. There was no one epiphany bolt of lightning, but many. ‘68 Martha’s tasted with Joe Heitz, ‘68 Beaulieu Vineyard Georges de Latour with André (Tchelistcheff), ‘64 Leroy Musigny at Maison Lameloise on my first trip to Burgundy in 1980 all stand out at this moment in time. So many. So lucky.”

In the mid-1970s, Tor took on a job as a wine scout for a small chain of wine/liquor stores in Southern California. He visited Napa Valley frequently to buy wines and forge relationships with the vintners. He soon landed a job at Beringer, working closely with Myron Nightingale, who was the winemaker at Beringer from 1971 to 1984. Come the 1980s, Napa Valley began finding its wine stride, and so did Tor.

“Meeting and then traveling with Myron Nightingale in the early ‘80s to build awareness of Napa Valley wines has many stories,” recalls Tor. “Myron introduced me to André, Bob Mondavi, Louis Martini, and others. My dinners with Harry Waugh at Belle and Barney Rhodes’ salon in Napa are very fond memories. My first date with my wife was at their home. Meeting Julia Child, then becoming a friend and escort for her in Napa.”  

As they say in the TV show Yellowstone, "Cowboys don’t say goodbye." The same can be said for wine workers. When it came time for Tor to retire from Beringer, a new chapter of his wine career began.

“I love wine and the people who make it,” says Tor. “Everyone who feels the same, and that I have been fortunate to meet, has inspired me. Making wine is what I wanted to do in the beginning, but I had to work hard from the bottom up to afford the opportunity.”

In 2001, Tor and Susan launched TOR Kenward Family Wines. Their first winemaker was Thomas Rivers Brown, but after a couple of years Jeff Ames stepped into the role and took the wines to the impressive levels of quality and expression that they are today.

“My style of wine is, ‘Let the vineyard talk,’” Tor says. “I’m very proud that the wines we make reflect the ground they come from. I was a very early advocate of single vineyard Cabernets because they are the most challenging and most rewarding wines to make.  This LTVT style is accomplished by picking when the fruit is optimum for each block of grapes, not over, not under, but optimum. Ripe seeds, firm, sweet grapes.”

The result is a collection of big, bold, vineyard-evocative Cabernets from some of the best sites in Napa, including Beckstoffer’s To Kalon and Dr. Crane Vineyards, as well as Vine Hill Ranch, Melanson, and Vaca Ridge (Upper Range Vineyard). TOR also produces a pair of opulent single-vineyard Chardonnays from Hyde and Beresini Vineyards in Los Carneros. And he also makes a couple of Uber blends: Pure Magic and Black Magic.

TOR’s 2021,2022, and 2023s are impressive line-ups. Side-stepping the challenges of the 2022 early September heatwave, the 2021s and 2023s are among their best wines made to date.

“2022 was a rough harvest, but we felt good about what we put in the bottle,” says Jeff Ames. “It’s such a different expression. We picked before and at the very tail end of the heat. On the Vaca Ridge, we had misters, and other sites had shade cloth. We were lucky not to have any dry-farmed vineyards. Dodging the harvest heat was like dodgeball. In the end, we expected more dimpling. All kinds of factors came into play, making each site unique. Of course, yields weren't great. We couldn’t make a Dr. Crane—it was just too hot there. To Kalon did a great job, maybe the greatest of our vineyards. They'd recently punched in a new well there. They work very well there now with canopies, shade cloth, and water use. All you're trying to do if you're a farmer is keep your shoot tips alive. Adding just a little water, but not enough to split the berries. In the end, the pHs were down a little in 2022—sub-3.8. Alcohol was about the same as in 2021.”

After the heat storm of 2022, 2023 produced some of TOR’s brightest, most shimmery wines ever. I tasted these as barrel samples and can’t wait to see the final results! 

Even if the quality of Napa wines remains consistently high, the wine industry as a whole is facing challenging times.

“We have been threatened by fires, earthquakes, urbanization, short-sighted developers, and big egos, but I still believe our success is and has been on the backs of the small wineries,” Tor assures me. “Bob Mondavi knew this and said the same in his lifetime. We should not forget this as we evolve and change, which we will.”

As for the future of Napa Cabernet?

“I’m an optimist,” smiles Tor. “I probably wouldn’t have survived nearly five decades in this game if I wasn’t. I’ve seen many cycles, trends, and growth. If you stand back far enough, you can see Napa Valley is a very small appellation in the big world of fine wine. We have gone through a growth spurt over the last fifty years that is unrivaled for an appellation with our reputation. I do think that in the next decade, there will be some shifting and settling, but I see our reputation on very solid ground in the US and internationally. We must keep our eye on the latter to succeed.”

Indeed, challenges are unavoidable in any journey worth taking. Ride ‘em cowboy.