Château de Monbazillac, Renaissance castle in Monbazillac, France

Château de Monbazillac is a rectangular castle built around 1550, with four large round towers at its corners and a fixed two-arch bridge for access. Its pale grey stone facade has three tiers of mullioned windows, a projecting row of corbels beneath the roofline, and steep brown tiled roofs with dormers. Inside are a monumental Renaissance fireplace, 17th-century furnishings and tapestries, and a cellar wine museum.

Begun around 1550 by François d'Aydie and his wife Françoise de Salignac and completed by Charles d'Aydie and Jeanne de Bourdeille, the castle was raised in a single campaign on a simple rectangle with four round corner towers. The Protestant Pierre de Barraud bought it in 1666 for 75,000 livres, and in 1608 Henri IV had already raised the seigneurie to a vicomté. It came through the Wars of Religion and the Fronde largely undamaged.

The exhibitions show how the de Bacalan family lived in the 18th century through recreated rooms and objects from daily life. These displays help visitors understand the habits and furnishings of that era.

The path through the castle is clearly marked for visitors and usually takes two to three hours to explore everything. Information panels in several languages help those visiting without a guide.

The castle's cellars hold a wine museum with tools for winemaking and a collection of bottles from the 18th and 19th centuries. The surrounding vineyard, which gives the region its best-known wine, covers about 3,000 hectares and was planted by monks in the 11th century.