By choosing Cambiata for my label, I wanted to work with a concept that broadened the vocabulary of the way that we usually think about wine.
Cambiata in musical language means more than the literal translation of “exchange” or “changed note.” It is the added tonal dimension that occurs when two chords momentarily share properties, so that the transition has greater depth and mellifluence. It was a radical idea back in the sixteenth century and was almost outlawed, along with a large group of polyphonic idioms.
The cambiata is expressed on my label with the idea of divine proportion. People gravitate towards objects or art that incorporate divine proportion: the Parthenon, the Taj Mahal, The Last Supper. These proportions are also common in nature, and, for example, are seen in the rose and the nautilus shell. On the Cambiata label the use of the spiral refers to the recursive shape of the nautilus, and of the recursive character of the wine, elements that continue to appear vintage after vintage, and work to better define, expand and make the terroir more evident--somewhat like the time dimension that's needed for the musical cambiata to work. Divine proportion, then, is a metaphor for the balance between terroir and wine, where the wine proportionally expresses the vineyard.
I chose “Gradus Ad Parnassum,” the title of Joseph Fux’s 1725 music textbook, as Cambiata’s motto, and this appears on the wine’s label. This pedagogical thesis, translated from Latin under the supervision of Bach and still in print today, was used by Leopold Mozart to teach young Wolfgang Amadeus, his son, the fundamentals of counterpoint--one essential fundamental being the beautifully melodic and vivaciously harmonic Nota Cambiata. “Gradus ad Parnassum” translates as Steps to Parnassus, the mountain of the muses. Fux chose the title to implore his students to rigorously study and practice, to climb the metaphorical mountain. Over vintages, a winemaker’s ability grows with the knowledge he engages. You can make fine wine from the start if you hire good help but to make wine with soul you yourself must study, develop philosophies and rigorously follow those beliefs. “Without method,” Fux writes, “the passionate and the ambitious will remain forever desperately athirst.” This fable carries Fux’s lesson--that the muses will only grant mastery to those who do the climbing.