Chateau de Brissac
— — pale stone, dark slate, above the vines of Anjou.
Not only on a wall.
“The tallest castle in France, set above the vineyards of the Anjou. Seven stories of pale tuffeau under a dark slate roof, on the right bank of the Aubance about fifteen kilometres south of Angers. The Cossé-Brissac family has held the place for more than five hundred years and still lives on the upper floors. The asymmetric façade — work that stopped in the 1620s when the funds ran out — gives the building a half-finished silhouette that the rest of the Loire does not have. Around it, the vines produce a sweet white wine the estate still bottles.
Chateau de Brissac, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Château de Brissac sits on the right bank of the Aubance river in Brissac-Loire-Aubance, a commune in the Maine-et-Loire department of the Pays de la Loire region, about fifteen kilometres south of Angers. The site has held a fortified structure since the eleventh century, when Foulques Nerra, Count of Anjou, built the first stronghold here. The current château was begun in 1502 by René de Cossé and substantially rebuilt in the early seventeenth century by Charles II de Cossé, Duke of Brissac. At roughly forty-eight metres and seven stories, it is the tallest castle in France — locally called the Géant du Val de Loire.
The pale walls are tuffeau, a soft cream-coloured limestone quarried in the Loire valley and used in nearly every great château of the region — Chambord, Chenonceau, Saumur. The dark roofs are slate from the Anjou quarries near Trélazé, just outside Angers, which produced roofing for cathedrals and palaces across northern France for the better part of nine centuries. The building's asymmetric silhouette is a direct consequence of unfinished work: Charles II de Cossé began rebuilding in 1606 around the surviving twin towers of the older medieval fortress, but funds ran out before the new construction could absorb them. The two periods stand side by side.
The château is open to the public from spring through autumn, with the family still in residence on the upper floors. The guided visit covers the main reception rooms, the private nineteenth-century theatre, and the chapel. The Cossé-Brissac vineyards bottle a Coteaux de l'Aubance and an Anjou Villages Brissac under the estate label, both tastable in the cellars. Brissac-Loire-Aubance is reached by car or by a short train from Angers Saint-Laud station; admission to the château proper requires an additional ticket.