The Curse of Oak Island: Bonus: Tour Marty Lagina’s Winery (Season 4) | History

Haha, guys.
Maddie Blake, how in the heck are you?
Honey, good to see you. Hey, Red, how are you, brother?
Thanks for having me back. Yeah, welcome.
Welcome to northern Michigan. Sorry about the snow.
But oh no, it’s fine. It’s beautiful out there, and it’s beautiful in here. Yeah.
Welcome to the winery. Wow, man. First thing, it says this view is stunning.
Yes, thank you very much. Yep, we tried to situate this to, you know, capture that natural view there.
Yeah, and then you designed this pretty much?
Yeah, I mean, your architect obviously took the sketch and ran with it, but it came from the mind of Martina and Olivia.
Yeah, yeah, and Alex. And Alex, and you know, in our heritage, and touring in Italy and checking out, you know, the real wineries over there.
That right there—what the heck is that?
That would be chainmail. Is that the Knights Templar? Could be. I don’t know.
And I see it wouldn’t challenge up there. What’s that?
Actually, I turned myself out of that beam there. See that beam? That beam’s a hundred years old at least.
The big fire?
Yes. Yeah, yeah. But instantly we chopped the end off, and inside that wood is still that quality right there.
It’s old-growth oak. I just wanted to see what it’s like. I turned that job. I just made that. I mean, there’s a curiosity.
I mean, tell about the crosses.
Yeah, the crosses you see. They look like they look like Templar crosses, but we did not purchase them. Somebody brought them here and just gave them to us as a gift.
That is really cool. So Marty, why a winery?
Well, that’s a good question, Maddie, but it goes back to our Italian heritage.
And this place is named after my grandmother, Mari Me Mars.
Yeah, that was her maiden name.
But when we were kids, we used to go visit my grandmother’s house, Rick and I, and my grandfather, who I’d never knew, had chiseled this cave out of solid granite.
So some of this ties back, you know, to Oak Island, the digging and caves and all this too—it’s a magical place, and this is kind of an honor to her and the family in the tradition.
And I would like to, before we get into some of the plans that I know you’re eager to discuss—
I am—let’s have a tour of the place, because I’m proud of it.
Great, thank you! Get it kicked off. I can’t wait.
This way, here.
[Music]
So Maddie Blake, we are now 35 feet below ground level. Went to a lot of effort and expense to allow natural cooling and, in a sense, heating in the winter of the space.
Your perfect conditions for wine.
These are what are called Stokes.
Obviously, they’re giant barrels, right? And the idea is that these are for white wine.
We specialize in reds here, but we make some really good whites as well.
And the idea here is that these have a lot less surface to volume, so you don’t want to over-oak Chardonnay or over-oak Pinot Grigio.
So the whites are aged, and sometimes, in some cases, fermented in these because that’s a vapor lock there.
Well, you know, with the carbon dioxide, you know, when you’re fermenting, so my winemaker actually used these as primary fermenters, so they can be used for that too.
Okay, so those—it’s kind of cool when it’s happening. It’s like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory down here, because those will be bubbling away, you know.
It’s actually quite, quite interesting. I should explain to all over-oak… we’re both nodding. I don’t know that we really understand that right now.
Every time you say oak, I kind of freak out a little bit.
So see those smaller barrels there?
Okay, there’s a lot more surface of oak to the volume that’s in them than there is here.
And reds can take the oak. When you taste a big cab, you know you’re tasting a little bit of the oak it was stored in.
Sure, and sometimes it’s stored as long as two years, and the reds really sort of require that to mellow them, you know. But the whites, you only want just a touch of it.
Okay, so you know, you try… I mean, winemaking is part science and part art, and, you know, it’s little things on the edge that make your product superior, maybe the next guy.
How about wine drinking? Because I want to be good at that.
Actually, there is one aspect of the wine, you know, I’m singularly impressed by, and that I really think you should talk about, and that is carbon neutral.
Because a lot of effort went into that. Hit it, and thinking, what does that mean? What do you mean by that?
Well, I’ll give you… make it as brief as I can. First of all, we use passive concepts for energy here, because all of this being underground and the massive structure, you know, gives you a huge thermal inertia.
Remember tonight, you’re 35 feet below ground. Correct?
Yeah, you can feel it. It’s, it’s Quincy, and it’s gonna be this temperature without need of heat or air conditioning.
No, it won’t need heat in the winter, and it won’t need air conditioning in the summer, so we’re using zero energy down here.
So that goes back to known as—exactly. They knew that. The old-timers knew that. If you want to store something, put it underground.
Okay, so then, real quickly, on the other two.
So, I also wanted to be carbon neutral, as carbon neutral as possible.
So all of the electricity is provided by a windmill that the local utility was putting up for sale for scrap, basically.
And I have a wind company, and we’ve purchased it, refurbished it, and that electricity is used here.
So all electricity comes from a renewable source. And then the heat—there’s a high-efficiency wood burner outside.
Boilers. Boiler system, yes.
And almost zero particulate emissions, and we’re using the wood from this site that had fallen and would have decayed anyway.
So we’re using dead, dead trees from the emerald ash borer, actually.
So the heat comes from a renewable source, zero carbon, carbon neutral. The electricity does, and then we have this massive thermal inertia system so that our costs of energy are actually quite small.
Anyway, they’re all LED lights, you know, so we were very cognizant, and the thing about the ash borer is it controls the invasive spread of that, you know, by cutting the trees.
Though we put it to good use—they would have gone to waste.
You guys are very conscious about the environment on Oak Island when you do things, and it looks like you brought it here to your vineyard.
This is a green vineyard.
It very much is, but the coolest part of this place is down here in our wine case.
There’s something cooler?
Yes, sir.
I think it’s the coolest part, aside from the treasure.
Yes, well, I agree. We’re in the agent games. This is incredible.
Okay, I want you to do something for me.
Okay. I want you to stand right there.
Okay.
I’m an acorn, you can’t kill me.
You know that?
No, I can’t kill you.
You know what? Does… no.
But there’s some interesting things here, and it begins with this.
This is what we affectionately call the oculus.
You two are the two coolest people I’ve ever met in my life.
What is it you’re looking at, Maddie?
I’m trying not to stand on a Templar cross, Marty.
You know, I’m not gonna say all the reasons that that’s there. I just thought it was a nice symbol, you know.
It’s a symbol. It seems to me of good things, really, to me.
You know, the Templars are a real mystery, just like Oak Island.
We did a lot of design here to try and tie this back into history, you know.
I like that. I think it’s neat.
And one of the things… one of the first things to see—the subscribe line here.
Yes, you—if you walked along that line due east,
Okay, you would walk right through Bordeaux, France, and northern Italy.
So the two best…
Yes, we’re on the correct latitude for making grapes.
So there’s all kinds of features here that tie into history just because it would be fun.
I mean, anybody can build a wine cave, but why not build a fun wine cave, right?
And an interesting one. For instance, we had the opportunity to align this cave. Those big doors at the end, to open on June 21st, the Sun rises directly there one time per year.
Solstice to solstice, and it shines directly down this and lights up the wall behind.
And we get some people in here and—Wow!
For me, and I’m sure for you, you remember sitting under the oculus in the Pantheon in Rome?
Absolutely.
That’s what this is, to me, anyway.
You’re