2005 J. Lassalle Champagne Brut “Cuvée Spéciale”

After all the jacks are in their boxes
And the clowns have all gone to bed
You can hear happiness staggering on down the street
Footprints dressed in red
And the wind whispers, Mary
[All lyrics are to “The Wind Cries Mary” by Jimi Hendrix.
©1967 Jimi Hendrix.]

James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington. According to Jimi’s father, James “Al” Hendrix, his son’s first guitar was a broom. “I used to have Jimmy clean up the bedroom all the time while I was gone, and when I would come home I would find a lot of broom straws around the foot of the bed. I’d say to him, ‘Well didn’t you sweep up the floor?’ and he’d say, ‘Oh yeah,’ he did. But I’d find out later that he used to be sitting at the end of the bed there and strumming the broom like he was playing a guitar.”

In 1956, Jimi found a one-string ukulele in a trash pile. He taught himself to play the one-string by ear, singing along to Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog.” In 1957, Al bought an acoustic guitar for five dollars and gave it to Jimi. In 1958, after hearing Jimi’s versions of B. B. King’s, Robert Johnson’s, Muddy Waters’, and Howlin’ Wolf’s guitar licks, Al went to Myer’s Music on First Street in Seattle, bought a white Supro Ozark, and gave it to Jimi. In 1959, Jimi joined a band called the Rocking Kings. After the Supro Ozark was stolen, Al bought a Red Silvertone Danelectro and gave it to Jimi.

A broom is drearily sweeping
Up the broken pieces of yesterday’s life
Somewhere a queen is weeping
Somewhere a king has no wife
And the wind, it cries, Mary

In May of 1961, Hendrix enlisted in the Army. After completing basic training at Fort  Ord, California, he was assigned to the 101 Airborne Division and stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. In a letter to his father from Fort Campbell, Hendrix begged Al to send him the Silvertone Danelectro. “I really need it now,” he wrote. In November of 1961, Billy Cox, a fellow serviceman, walked past an army club and heard the sound of an electric guitar. Cox later described Hendrix’s style as “a combination of John Lee Hooker and Beethoven.”

In 1962, Hendrix was honorably discharged from the Army. During the next four years, he backed up Wilson Pickett, Slim Harpo, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, the Isley Brothers, Little Richard, Joey Dee and the Starliters, Curtis Knight and the Squires, and Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. In May of 1966, during a Jimmy James set at the Cheetah Club in New York, a young woman named Linda Keith noticed Hendrix. At the time, Linda Keith was Keith Richards’s girlfriend. After recommending Hendrix to Rolling Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who was not impressed, Keith introduced Jimi to Chas Chandler, who had just left The Animals with the idea of launching a second career as a manager and producer. Chandler was impressed. On September 24, 1966, he brought Hendrix to London and signed him to a recording contract. On September 30, 1966, Chandler took Hendrix to the London Polytechnic at Regent Street, where Cream was scheduled to perform. Before Cream took the stage, Chandler introduced Hendrix to Eric Clapton.

“He asked if he could play a couple of numbers,” Clapton recalled. “I said, ‘Of course,’ but I had a funny feeling about him.” Halfway through Cream’s set, Hendrix walked onstage and performed Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor.” According to Clapton, “He played just about every style you could think of, and not in a flashy way. I mean he did a few of his tricks, like playing with his teeth and behind his back, but it wasn’t in an upstaging sense at all, and that was it. He walked off, and my life was never the same again.”

Which brings us to the 2005 J. Lassalle Champagne Brut “Cuvée Spéciale.”

In the glass, the 2005 Lassalle Cuvée Spéciale is a dance of light and shadow. Some aspects of the bouquet are aggressive, others are passive, almost to the point of becoming shy. On the palate, the Lassalle reinvents itself as a story. In the beginning, the story sounds simple enough, the way a nursery rhyme can sound simple, but in no time at all the simplicity reinvents itself as a wheel, not so much a wheel on fire as a wheel inside a wheel. The finish is pure delight. Its only flaw is the way it turns itself into ether before you have time to embrace it.

In London, Hendrix fell in love with a writer named Kathy Etchingham. They moved into an apartment, ate, drank, got high, made love, fought, made up, and lived the lives of a genius and his heart’s desire.

“We’d had a row over food,” Kathy recalled, years later. “Jimi didn’t like lumpy mashed potatoes. There were thrown plates and I ran off. When I came back the next day, he’d written that song about me. Mary’s my middle name, and the one he would use when he wanted to annoy me. It’s incredibly flattering.”

Will the wind ever remember
The names it has blown in the past
And with its crutch, its old age, and its wisdom
It whispers no, this will be the last
And the wind cries, Mary

One Bottle is dedicated to the appreciation of good wines and good times, one bottle at a time. You can write to Joshua Baer at jb@onebottle.com.