REPORTING – A retired emergency doctor, with one foot in the SAMU and the other with the firefighters, Christian Le Teurnier also became a winemaker in his spare time. He saved 40 acres Of vines in Targon (Gironde).
Le Figaro Bordeaux
When he has neither his feet in his vineyard nor at the Bordeaux SAMU where he still operates at 20%, the retiree puts on his firefighter doctor’s cap once a week to “help the people of the countryside” who often face very long delays in receiving treatment. In the emergency room, his colleagues describe him as “a breath of fresh air” who speaks to them “of the vine and Mildew » between two ambulance trips. In Entre-deux-Mers, in Targon (Gironde), wine growers testify to“an endearing and intelligent man who relates to people with empathy”. At almost 69 years old, Christian Le Teurnier, an emergency doctor, decided to save 40 acres of uprooted vines around his home and to produce his wine for pleasure.
Of Breton ancestry, the Parisian who moved to the Gironde countryside after the Covid-19 pandemic, sees his new work as a contemplative and modest leisure activity. “What I like about Samu is the immediacy. In the vineyard you can’t have it. We work on elements that we cannot control: a frost and the vine is ruined”, describes the almost septuagenarian. Thus carrying the concerns of a winegrower without suffering the financial pinch, Christian Le Teurnier therefore believes that he is not really one. “Winegrowers live with a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. For me, it’s a bit of work, but it’s not mine. I have the pleasure !”
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House Le Teurnier
In the old wine estate that he lives in after having rebuilt it, the doctor nevertheless rolls up his sleeves. Since its first harvest in 2022, the Maï cuvée from Maison Le Teurnier – so named in homage to his wife and to avoid the specifications in Bordeaux – represents 1,800 bottles per year. A production half consumed by its owner and the other half “sold to friends and colleagues” via word of mouth – with preferential rates for caregivers with lower salaries. On the back label of this vineyard called Les Premières Cabanes, the emergency doctor presents a wine “made of friendship, first with Thierry, the benchmark and the pivot”which refers to his winegrower neighbor who initiated him from pruning to lifting. “He doesn’t owe me much.”tempers the person concerned, “I wouldn’t have done it if he wasn’t a great guy who loved wine. I have neither his education nor his culture, but he loves people and he does it for fun on a small plot, as if he had a vegetable garden. It’s a game !”
A game with Merlot flavors that are nevertheless very serious, which allows Christian Le Teurnier to present “a lovely wine with lots of fruit”, expertise of his friend, who operates the 50 hectares in Bordeaux Supérieur of Château Matalin in Targon. “I’m a little disillusioned and tired. He surprises me, he gets on his little tractor and he does things”, portrays Thierry Faure. A description faithful to the temperament of the retiree which defines his journey as a surprise. “I didn’t have the profile, I was average at school, more interested in girls than in studies. But there is an element of luck and my joy as a little boy was riding in a fire truck. Today I still like it”confides Christian Le Teurnier.
“The virtues of red wine”
The link between medicine and wine? He doesn’t do it. “Taking care of the vines is closer to the role of a father than that of a doctor: you accompany them by watching them grow and trying to make sure things go as smoothly as possible. And then like the harvest, the child leaves”philosophizes the emergency physician who believes that “wine is love and opening a bottle is drinking a story”.
Hers is simple and as peaceful as “her beautiful life” : at almost 70 years old, he is happy and proud of this wine made by his hands and those of his descendants. So for the one who rents “the sacred character of wine, which carries something else, just like bread”the recipe contains “this magic” which will always unite men.
