Champagne Alain GUILLAUME

At A Glance

Field: Detail
Region: Champagne
Village: Trépail
Main grapes: Chardonnay and Pinot Noir
Named cuvée: Atemporel Extra Brut
Vineyard scale: More than 8 hectares
Certification: HVE

The Producer

Champagne Alain GUILLAUME works from Trépail with a family lineage reaching back through two generations of viticulteurs. The range includes Atemporel Extra Brut and Rosé Brut, two cuvées with different compositions and cellar profiles. The property holds HVE certification, Haute Valeur Environnementale, a French environmental standard for farms and vineyards.

Atemporel is the house's perpetual white cuvée. Rosé Brut provides the rosé expression. Their production details give the range its two distinct forms.

Place

The estate is located in Trépail on the southeast slope of the Montagne de Reims. Chardonnay is especially present in the village, alongside Pinot Noir, giving the house access to both the white grape used for Atemporel and the red grape used in the rosé.

Trépail supplies the geographic setting; the bottles then separate the grapes through colour, blend, and dosage. Atemporel is a Blanc de Blancs, while Rosé Brut uses both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Story

In 1981, Alain Guillaume, heir to two generations of viticulteurs, began producing Champagne. The property later received HVE certification. The history therefore moves from a named family lineage into a documented environmental standard attached to the estate.

Vineyards And Cellar

The vineyard is planted to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Rosé Brut combines 40% Chardonnay with 60% Pinot Noir, including 13% red wine in the blend. It ages for 4 to 5 years in cave and receives a brut dosage of 6 to 8 g/l. Dosage is the final addition made after sparkling wine production, and a brut level leaves the wine dry while retaining some softness.

Wines

Atemporel Extra Brut is the white Blanc de Blancs cuvée, made from Chardonnay and presented in the extra brut style. Rosé Brut is the rosé cuvée, combining Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and red wine. The two bottles divide the range by colour, grape composition, and dosage.

Atemporel has an extra brut dosage of 4 g/l, while Rosé Brut is brut. The range therefore moves from a white cuvée built entirely around Chardonnay to a rosé whose colour comes through the use of red wine in the blend.

In The Glass

Atemporel opens with white flowers, hazelnut, and freshly picked yellow fruit. Butter and brioche lead into mature notes of dried apricot, stewed apple, fruit in spirits, and walnut. The palate is ample, smooth, unctuous, and meaty, with an acidulated finish marked by lemon zest.

Rosé Brut shows a very clear copper colour and a fairly fine nose with a slight milky note. Acidity carries the palate, which stays subtle and fine through the finish.

A Bottle To Understand It

Choose Atemporel Extra Brut. It is 100% Chardonnay, aged for 5 years in cave, and shows a clear gold colour with an extra brut dosage of 4 g/l. The cuvée uses a perpetual reserve method: each year, 50% of the tank drawn for bottling is replaced with selected wine from the latest harvest.

That combination puts the house's white Champagne, long cellar ageing, dry dosage, and layered reserve system into one bottle. Its colour and cellar profile are distinct from the copper rosé, while the Chardonnay gives the cuvée its Blanc de Blancs designation.

Anecdote

In 2012, Noémie Guillaume and Antoine Peudepiece took over the family estate in Trépail. Within years, they created Atemporel, a perpetual cuvée made with a solera method. Each year, 50% of the tank drawn for bottling is replaced by selected wine from the latest harvest, joining older wine, new wine, and accumulated vintages in one cuvée. Hachette later awarded Atemporel one star. The bottle's name refers to this layered approach, where several harvests remain together instead of being treated as a single vintage.

Final Word

Champagne Alain GUILLAUME is a Trépail house whose range joins a Chardonnay Blanc de Blancs with a red wine based rosé. Atemporel carries the house's perpetual cuvée method in a dry, long aged Champagne.

At A Glance

The Producer

Place

Story

Vineyards And Cellar

Wines

In The Glass

A Bottle To Understand It

Anecdote

Final Word

Sources

Where to go next