The Libournais is the right bank of Bordeaux, the country around the port of Libourne where the Isle meets the Dordogne, and it holds Saint-Émilion, Pomerol, Fronsac, Lalande-de-Pomerol and the Castillon and Francs hills. Libourne was founded as a bastide in 1270 and traded wine down the Dordogne while Bordeaux, downstream, controlled the sea route, which is why the two banks developed as separate markets with separate classifications and separate merchants.

Merlot and Cabernet Franc do the work here rather than Cabernet Sauvignon, because the soils are cooler: clay and limestone on the plateau above Saint-Émilion, gravel and clay on the Pomerol plateau, with a famous button of iron rich clay at its centre. Saint-Émilion itself is a medieval hill town built of the same limestone its cellars are cut from, with a church hewn out of the rock, and the town and its vineyards were put on the UNESCO list in 1999.