We investigate the observational effects of a quintessence model in an anisotropic spacetime. The anisotropic metric is a non-rotating particular case of a generalized Godels metric and is classified as Bianchi III. This metric is an exact solution of the Einstein-Klein-Gordon field equations with an anisotropic scalar field, which is responsible for the anisotropy of the spacetime geometry. We test the model against observations of type Ia supernovae, analyzing the SDSS dataset calibrated with the MLCS2k2 fitter, and the results are compared to standard quintessence models with Ratra-Peebles potentials. We obtain a good agreement with observations, with best values for the matter and curvature density parameters $Omega_M = 0.29$ and $Omega_k= 0.01$ respectively. We conclude that present SNe Ia observations cannot, alone, distinguish a possible anisotropic axis in the cosmos.