Tor Kenward
Vintner and Proprietor
Tor Kenward is one of Napa Valley’s true icons: a winemaker, storyteller, and historian. Before wine, there was music – founding a Southern California jazz club and working security for legends like Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin (for real).
A trip to Napa in 1975 changed everything. Tor joined Beringer, where he spent 26 years shaping its Private Reserve program, walking vineyards with André Tchelistcheff, and hosting culinary pioneers like Julia Child.
In 2001, Tor and his wife Susan founded TOR Wines with a singular vision: small-production, single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay from Napa’s most revered sites.
Since then, TOR has earned more than thirty 100-point scores, with the flagship Black Magic hailed as one of Napa’s most extraordinary wines. Tor’s 2022 memoir, Reflections of a Vintner, is part love letter, part field guide, part behind-the-scenes look at five decades in Napa.
He still walks every vineyard, tastes every barrel, and makes every final blend - and believes, above all, that wine should make you feel something: a connection between the land, the wine, and the people who bring it to life.
Susan Kenward
Proprietor
Susan Kenward has always moved at the intersection of style, taste, and creativity.
From co-founding the Hamptons specialty shop Loaves and Fishes (winner of national acclaim) to authoring five cookbooks that earned two James Beard Awards, her work has consistently blended elegance with authenticity.
In 1985, Susan’s reputation as a food and lifestyle writer brought her to Napa Valley for an assignment that would change her life. Sent to interview a pioneering woman winemaker, she was introduced to Tor, and to the region that became her home.
By 1991, she was channeling Napa’s scents and spirit into Flora Napa Valley and Olivina, a fragrance and body care line inspired by wine country. To this day, Susan embodies the balance that defines Napa itself: part style, part down-to-earth, always rooted in a love of place.
Jeff Ames
Winemaker
Jeff Ames arrived in Napa Valley from Alabama in 1999 with little more than determination – sleeping on egg-crate foam in his truck for the first six months.
A decade later, Wine Spectator hailed him as one of Napa’s rising stars. Jeff learned winemaking the old-school way: hands in the vines, on the crush pad, and in the cellar. Mentored by Thomas Brown and shaped by harvests at Schrader, Maybach, Outpost, and TOR, he’s always followed one rule: let the vineyard speak first.
For over two decades, Jeff and Tor have crafted wines that rank among Napa’s finest: site-driven, precise, and never about flash.
Reflections of a Vintner
Reflections of a Vintner recounts the lessons learned, relationships forged, and observations made from an insider’s nearly fifty-year journey through the burgeoning wine industry in Napa Valley.
Read More