The Wine Spectator California Wall of Fame
Since Wine Spectator’s debut in 1976, hundreds of the California vintners and winemakers who shaped America’s wine culture have graced the cover of the magazine. Many of those covers are now considered iconic images of California wine that feature true legends of the industry, from Chuck Wagner and Helen Turley to Ernest and Julio Gallo.
The magazine’s team has preserved those issues in the Napa bureau’s library. Editor and publisher Marvin R. Shanken has long talked about a desire to have the most iconic covers framed and put on display. When our new Napa tasting annex opened in 2019, he realized that the walls outside the wine cellar were an ideal place for what he dubbed the California Wall of Fame. “Marvin just looked at the wall and had a vision,” says Napa bureau chief MaryAnn Worobiec.
[article-img-container][src=MagazineArticles/2025/083125/california2_083125_1600.jpg] [credit= (Adrian Gregorutti)] [alt=A wall in Wine Spectator’s Napa, California, office, where 40 covers of past magazine issues are displayed as a gallery][end: article-img-container]
The oldest cover on the walls is from May 1984. That was back when Wine Spectator was a tabloid newspaper, and it hailed Robert Mondavi as “Man of the Year.” It’s one of eight Mondavi covers on display, a sign of how influential the late wine visionary was on the growth and maturation of California wine culture.
Regular readers will recognize many familiar faces on the wall. There’s a grinning Jess Jackson holding a bottle of Kendall-Jackson’s Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay from July 1995. Francis Ford Coppola is wearing a dapper suit on the cover from June 2000, and an illustrated cover from July 2022 features six “Legends of California Chardonnay.”
[article-img-container][src=MagazineArticles/2025/083125/california4_083125_1600.jpg] [credit= (Adrian Gregorutti)] [alt=A wall in Wine Spectator’s Napa, California, office, where eight covers of past magazine issues featuring Robert Mondavi are displayed as a gallery][end: article-img-container]