Established in the late 1990s when Jess and Barbara Jackson sought a Sonoma site to rival Grand Cru Bordeaux. Vigneron Pierre Seillan — also of Vérité — makes single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon from two Knights Valley vineyards, Helena Dakota and Helena Montana. Tastings are at the Jackson estate in Chalk Hill.
In the late 1990s the Jackson Family team began looking for a Sonoma County site that could deliver the opulence of Napa Cabernet with the precision and age-worthiness of Sonoma. They found it on the southwest-facing slopes of 4,300-foot Mount St. Helena, in the volcanic heart of the Knights Valley appellation — a quiet, rural pocket that had earned AVA status in 1983 but remained largely undiscovered. The ranch was named Anakota, and in 1997 Bordelais Vigneron Pierre Seillan began surveying the terrain, analyzing the soils, and planting vines. Seillan — a sixth-generation winemaker from Gascony who had crafted wine for two decades in eight different Bordeaux appellations — applied his proprietary micro-cru philosophy: treating each vineyard as a patchwork of soils, microclimates, exposures, and elevations, farming and vinifying each small block independently to capture the message of the soil.
Helena Montana Cabernet Sauvignon, Knights Valley — Lush and opulent, from a steep western-facing hillside of chalky, gravelly loam (Jeb Dunnuck 97).
Helena Dakota Cabernet Sauvignon, Knights Valley — The more mineral, gravelly counterpart; redder-fruited with silkier tannins.
Knights Valley Cabernet Sauvignon — A near-term second label blended with a touch of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.
Sonoma County Cabernet Franc — A newer single-varietal release from the estate.
Anakota is the Knights Valley Cabernet project of vigneron Pierre Seillan (of Vérité), built around two volcanic-soil estate vineyards at the foot of Mount St. Helena.
Two estate vineyards anchor the program. Helena Dakota, a 12-acre site at roughly 750 feet, runs southeast to northwest on soft reddish brown gravelly silt-loam soils; cooling breezes pass over a large pond and slow ripening, yielding Cabernets with red-fruit character, fine tannins, and notable minerality — Seillan compares them to Pauillac or Saint-Estèphe. Helena Montana, a 60-acre vineyard at 950 feet, climbs steeper benches of firm white-yellow gravelly loam; the resulting Cabernets are denser and more concentrated, with black fruit, muscular tannins, and Hermitage-like ember tones. Both wines are 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, aged thirteen months in roughly 70% new French oak, and built for long cellaring. Tastings are by appointment only at the Jackson Family estate complex on Thomas Road in Healdsburg, twenty minutes from Vérité's chai. Production is small — typically 700 to 1,300 cases per cuvée.
Pierre Seillan, the Gascon-born vigneron behind Vérité, crafted the first vintage of Anakota in 2001, applying his terroir-driven philosophy to single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon from Knights Valley in Sonoma County. A ninth-generation winemaker who ran his family's farm in southwest France by sixteen and managed seven Bordeaux châteaux before partnering with Jess Jackson and Barbara Banke in the mid-1990s, Seillan emigrated to Sonoma in 1997 to make wine from the Jackson family's extensive holdings. For Anakota he draws on two superb Knights Valley sites — Helena Montana and Helena Dakota — to produce classically structured, age-worthy Cabernets. He works between Sonoma, his Bordeaux estate Château Lassègue, and Tuscany, with his daughter Hélène and son Nicolas increasingly involved in the family's wines.
Barbara Banke is proprietor and chair of Jackson Family Wines, the company she built with her late husband, Jess Jackson. In 1997 the couple set out to find a Knights Valley site that could pair Napa’s opulence with Sonoma’s freshness; they named the high-elevation ranch Anakota — a fusion of its two vineyards, Helena Dakota and Helena Montana — and planted Cabernet Sauvignon on its volcanic slopes. Banke has since grown the family’s portfolio into one of the world’s most respected, while entrusting Anakota’s two single-vineyard Cabernets to vigneron Pierre Seillan, the Bordeaux master behind sister estate Vérité.
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Helena Montana Cabernet Sauvignon, Knights Valley — Lush and opulent, from a steep western-facing hillside of chalky, gravelly loam (Jeb Dunnuck 97).
Helena Dakota Cabernet Sauvignon, Knights Valley — The more mineral, gravelly counterpart; redder-fruited with silkier tannins.
Knights Valley Cabernet Sauvignon — A near-term second label blended with a touch of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.
Sonoma County Cabernet Franc — A newer single-varietal release from the estate.
Anakota is the Knights Valley Cabernet project of vigneron Pierre Seillan (of Vérité), built around two volcanic-soil estate vineyards at the foot of Mount St. Helena.
In the late 1990s the Jackson Family team began looking for a Sonoma County site that could deliver the opulence of Napa Cabernet with the precision and age-worthiness of Sonoma. They found it on the southwest-facing slopes of 4,300-foot Mount St. Helena, in the volcanic heart of the Knights Valley appellation — a quiet, rural pocket that had earned AVA status in 1983 but remained largely undiscovered. The ranch was named Anakota, and in 1997 Bordelais Vigneron Pierre Seillan began surveying the terrain, analyzing the soils, and planting vines. Seillan — a sixth-generation winemaker from Gascony who had crafted wine for two decades in eight different Bordeaux appellations — applied his proprietary micro-cru philosophy: treating each vineyard as a patchwork of soils, microclimates, exposures, and elevations, farming and vinifying each small block independently to capture the message of the soil.
Two estate vineyards anchor the program. Helena Dakota, a 12-acre site at roughly 750 feet, runs southeast to northwest on soft reddish brown gravelly silt-loam soils; cooling breezes pass over a large pond and slow ripening, yielding Cabernets with red-fruit character, fine tannins, and notable minerality — Seillan compares them to Pauillac or Saint-Estèphe. Helena Montana, a 60-acre vineyard at 950 feet, climbs steeper benches of firm white-yellow gravelly loam; the resulting Cabernets are denser and more concentrated, with black fruit, muscular tannins, and Hermitage-like ember tones. Both wines are 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, aged thirteen months in roughly 70% new French oak, and built for long cellaring. Tastings are by appointment only at the Jackson Family estate complex on Thomas Road in Healdsburg, twenty minutes from Vérité's chai. Production is small — typically 700 to 1,300 cases per cuvée.
Pierre Seillan, the Gascon-born vigneron behind Vérité, crafted the first vintage of Anakota in 2001, applying his terroir-driven philosophy to single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon from Knights Valley in Sonoma County. A ninth-generation winemaker who ran his family's farm in southwest France by sixteen and managed seven Bordeaux châteaux before partnering with Jess Jackson and Barbara Banke in the mid-1990s, Seillan emigrated to Sonoma in 1997 to make wine from the Jackson family's extensive holdings. For Anakota he draws on two superb Knights Valley sites — Helena Montana and Helena Dakota — to produce classically structured, age-worthy Cabernets. He works between Sonoma, his Bordeaux estate Château Lassègue, and Tuscany, with his daughter Hélène and son Nicolas increasingly involved in the family's wines.
Barbara Banke is proprietor and chair of Jackson Family Wines, the company she built with her late husband, Jess Jackson. In 1997 the couple set out to find a Knights Valley site that could pair Napa’s opulence with Sonoma’s freshness; they named the high-elevation ranch Anakota — a fusion of its two vineyards, Helena Dakota and Helena Montana — and planted Cabernet Sauvignon on its volcanic slopes. Banke has since grown the family’s portfolio into one of the world’s most respected, while entrusting Anakota’s two single-vineyard Cabernets to vigneron Pierre Seillan, the Bordeaux master behind sister estate Vérité.
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