About Us:

La Jota Vineyard Co. was founded in the 1890s by Frederick Hess, an immigrant from Locarno, Switzerland, who established a German-language newspaper in San Francisco. No doubt influenced by other European immigrants involved in California's nascent wine industry, Hess purchased 327 acres of a Mexican land grant Rancho La Jota high on Howell Mountain for his vineyards. In 1898 he built the winery from volcanic ash rock quarried right on the property; his first fermentation tanks also came from the estate from a stand of nearby coastal redwoods.

At the 1900 Paris Exposition, only two years after the winery's construction, the wines of La Jota garnered international recognition with a bronze medal; in 1904 they won gold at the World's Fair in St. Louis.