Château de Châtenay, Heritage castle in Cognac, France

Château de Châtenay is a long, pale stone building with a steeply pitched gray slate roof, standing on the left bank of the Charente north of Cognac. Its flat light-gray facade has a round-arched window at the center, flanked by lower windows, and small white-framed dormers and slim chimneys along the roofline. The property covers about ten hectares between the river valley and a limestone cuesta.

In 1492 Louise of Savoy, wife of Charles of Orléans, acquired the Châtenay estate from Jean de Lousme, lord of Saint-Brice; she gave birth to the future Francis I in 1494. In 1760 the royal métairie of Châtenay was worked by Jean Caminade, and in 1773 his son Olivier bought another part of the estate from the Duke of La Vauguyon. Augustin Caminade, dismissed from the sub-prefecture under the Restoration, founded a Cognac trading house in 1818 and was elected deputy in 1831.

The name Châtenay comes from the royal métairie of Châtenay (or Châtenet) recorded in 1760, worked by Jean Caminade of Castres. His descendants, notably Jacques-Augustin Caminade, sub-prefect then deputy, founded a Cognac trading house in 1818. The estate's vines were classed among the Champagne terroirs of Cognac, and the property held the commune's largest planted area.

The estate lies north of Cognac on the left bank of the Charente, between the valley floor and the hard limestone cuesta, at altitudes of 10 to 33 metres. It covers about ten hectares, with holm oaks near the top of the slope. The property is private; the building is seen from outside, behind the row of trees along the road.

The estate covers about ten hectares on the left bank of the Charente, between 10 and 33 metres in altitude, straddling the valley and the blunt front of a hard limestone cuesta nearly 80 metres thick. Its vines were classed among the Champagne terroirs of Cognac, and by the 19th century the property held the largest planted area in the commune.