More wine term Q's

Hi all!

I have another question regarding wine tasting terms. I was wondering what the difference between "jammy" and "cloying" is in red wine? TIA!

Cloying seems to be necessarily pejorative.

Jammy could go either way.

So, it depends on who is using the terms.

Cloying seems to be necessarily pejorative. Jammy could go either way. So, it depends on who is using the terms.

I agree with Rahsaan. "Cloying" is never a good thing as it is an indicator of too much of a good thing becoming a bad thing, particularly sweetness.

"Jammy" really depends on your own preferences. A lot of Zinfandels are really "jammy," and sometimes I like 'em and sometimes not.

[Robin Garr]

I have another question regarding wine tasting terms. I was wondering what the difference between "jammy" and "cloying" is in red wine? TIA!

I think Gary hit the nail on the head about "jammy" being varietal-specific. I might like a jammy Zinfandel. I might or might not like a jammy Cotes du Rhone. I would almost certainly hate a jammy Burgundy.

"Cloying" to me is a fairly specific tasting term, which I would restate as "much too sweet, without balancing acidity."

Washington Irving has a great definition of "cloying" as used in wine tasting: "It had a cloying sweetness that palled upon the taste." It's never a positive note.

I agree that "jammy" can be good or bad depending on the variety being tasted.

Robin wrote an excellent note awhile back that illustrates the point:

"Chateau Grande Cassagne "G.S." 2003 Costières de Nîmes ($11.99). This is a very dark-garnet wine, black at the center. Its rich, warm aromas of cherry and raspberry are so fruit-forward as to seem almost "grapey," with a whack of raw new oak. Just as big and ripe on the palate, it's a bit of a "fruit-bomb," although there's plenty of acidity and an edge of drying tannins to back it up. The torrid summer of '03 fostered an over-the-top, jammy wine with a distinct California accent, a wine that seems almost consciously manipulated as a ratings-point grabber. A blend of Grenache and Syrah (thus the "G.S."), it likely drew raves from Parker and Wine Spectator, and it's an imposing wine if you like 'em in this style; but it's very atypical of the Rhône. US Importer: Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, D.C. (Mar 23, 2005)"

Not a bad wine if you like the style -- it's not "cloying" for Robin, but might well be for someone who likes a leaner style of Rhône wine.

It's worth mentioning that, as Robin suggests, "jammy" is always a positive descriptor for Robert Parker: here's his definition of the word:

"jammy: When wines have a great intensity of fruit from excellent ripeness they can be jammy, which is a very concentrated, flavorful wine with superb extract. In great vintages such as 1961, 1978, 1985, 1989, 1990, and 1995, some of the wines are so concentrated that they are said to be jammy."

Parker does use the word "jammy" quite often. A few years ago I did a word count of eight years of his tasting notes; "jammy" was the 16th most common word in his tasting notes:

fruit 11,270 53.4%
nose 8,256 39.2%
I 7,999 38.0%

finish 7,258 34.4%
rich 6,690 31.7%
full bodied 6,118 29.0%
my 2,666 12.6%
reveals 2,508 11.9%
impressive 2,284 10.8%

concentration 2,251 10.7%
Plenty 2,233 10.6%
great 2,118 10.0%
Readers 2,009 9.5%
attractive 1,949 9.2%

outstanding 1,932 9.2%
jammy 1,918 9.1%
elegant 1,875 8.9%
smoky 1,868 8.9%
delicious 1,857 8.8%

purity 1,794 8.5%
personality 1,720 8.2%
extremely 1,350 6.4%
saturated 1,076 5.1%
extraordinary 1,059 5.0%

you 759 3.6%
exotic 622 3.0%
Kacher 592 2.8%
unquestionably 432 2.0%


Regards, Bob

[Jenise]

Maria, perhaps you're wondering how to recognize each term? Well, think about strawberries, the taste of fresh vs. the taste of what you scoop out of a jar and spread on your toast. THAT difference between fresh and cooked is the flavor we usually refer to as 'jammy'. As others said, some varietals show more than others. Also, it's a trait of warm climate wines--more heat, more cooked flavor in the grape. Some like it, some don't, so as others said it doesn't denote a flaw per se. 'Cloying' is definitely a complaint, however, and it refers to a flavor that annoyingly hangs back in your mouth. A wine that you expect to be dry but that has lower acid or higher residual sugar than you expect might be described as being 'cloying' or having a cloying finish.

Another viewpoint: although I fully agree with the idea of 'variety-specific' tasting notes (or region-specific), I have jamminess. I prefer fresh fruit flavors to cooked.

Note that there is a connection between very ripe grapes and 'jamminess,' and very ripe grapes have lower acidity than less ripe grapes do. I prefer 'fresher' acidity, even more than 'fresh' flavors.



Great questions, Maria.

Bob,

please tell me you used some kind of computer program for that Parker word count...

Oh, no, that would be much too easy, Oliver.

Seriously, though, Parker's notes used to be published on a disc -- don't know if they still are -- I lost interest in his opinion two or three years after I started drinking wine seriously and dropped it.

The disc had a neat little search program that allowed you to search on specific words. And, if you didn't enter any words in the search box at all, it would return all of the words in the database in several different possible orders. The "study" of word counts took about 20 seconds to run, copy, and post.

After I found that funny little attribute of the search engine, of course.

Thank God.

I had this image of you poring over the Advocate for years, like the compilers of the OED. Doing the 'hedonistic' count alone would have taken many months...that way lies insanity...

It was great fun, Oliver. The search engine made it easy to run correlations between numeric rankings and words. I learned a great deal about wine, frankly, simply by collecting which wineries Parker had rated the highest and the most often.

Then I would do research on the specific wineries using other sources.

In a strange way, I became immune to Parker Points -- they helped me find out what was popular and what I really liked at the same time.

Fun -- and people enjoyed the results of the "research" as well.