Fronsac and its enclave of Canon-Fronsac lie directly to the northwest of Libourne in a triangle between the Dordogne and the Isle river coming from the north. The area already had an excellent reputation as a wine region in the 17th and 18th centuries, after Cardinal Richelieu introduced wine to the royal court. But the fame faded. It was not until the 1980s that extensive investment began, bringing Fronsac and Canon-Fronsac back to the attention of the large community of Bordeaux lovers.
©The vineyards of the region, which until 1976 was still called Côtes de Fronsac, extend over seven communes, of which only St.Michael-de-Fronsac and a small piece of Fronsac have a claim to the Canon-Fronsac appellation. The sub-region has the reputation of having the better terroir and theoretically produces the finer wines, but in practice the wine quality here depends much more on the producer than on the origin.
Stylistically, there is no discernible difference between the two appellations anyway. The wines, which grow here predominantly on limestone and lime-rich clay soils, are predominantly powerful and robust. They have always been endowed with much more prominent tannin than those from St.-Emilion or Pomerol, which today is only underpinned with considerably more fruit than in the days before the quality renaissance, when the wines here often turned out quite edgy and brittle. Nevertheless, their tannic power remains a distinguishing feature of many wines from Fronsac and Canon-Fronsac today.