Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Wine Label Typos

This past Shabbos at my in-laws, there was a bottle of Moscato D'Asti, from Borgo Reale. Some people at the table were discussing the description on the label about the wine's "dancing gold highlights." So I took a look at the label, which included a few mistakes. It is a bit funny when someone is trying to convey sophistication but ruins it with silly mistakes. Here is the text from the label:
"This wine's flawless straw like [sic] yellow color is enhanced with dancing gold highlights that serve as a visual compliment [sic] to it's [sic] timely crafted "perfectly sweet" [sic] taste, which comes alive via the added complexity of green apple and floral hints. Good as an apertif or perfect to accompany desserts and pastries.
The mistakes are:
  1. "straw like" should be "straw-like" or "strawlike"
  2. "compliment" should presumably be "complement"
  3. "it's" should be "its"
  4. Putting quotes around a phrase, as in "perfectly sweet," for emphasis, does not really work. Instead it conveys more a sense of air quotes, and thus the reverse of what you wrote.
At any rate, the wine was delicious, and is 5.5% alcohol by volume, so might be a nice wine to buy for the Pesach seder.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"It is a bit funny when someone is trying convey sophistication but ruin it with silly mistakes."

You mean like when someone says "trying convey sophistication" instead of "trying to convey sophistication" or when someone says "ruin it" instead of "ruins it"?

joshwaxman said...

heh. precisely. this is the internet rule. whenever someone tries to point out spelling or grammar mistakes, he will misspell the word as grammer. And so on.

(In this case, both were the result of editing errors, in which I thought of better ways of phrasing it and changed it in a rush.)

There's a difference between a carelessly written blogpost and a printed wine label, of course, but still...

heh.

:)

Avi said...

Why would you serve a dessert wine for a main meal?

joshwaxman said...

Do you mean for Shabbos or for Pesach?

For Shabbos, my m-in-l bought it for a recipe, and then it was brought to the table for kiddush, rather than to be had with the meal. While I didn't make kiddush, I still tasted the wine. I prefer sweet wines to dry wines in general.

For Pesach, it is tasty, and a low enough alcohol content that it seems good for those who otherwise might not be able to stay up.

I am no wine connoisseur. The only wine I drink is at kiddush (if not grape juice), and then, I drink what tastes good. I don't try to match the wine to the fish. While there is indeed a chochma to this, it is not one that I am skilled in, or appreciate. Which is why, even before the usage errors, we found the description amusing.

:)

thanbo said...

aside from the spelling errors, it also didn't make sense.

"...its timely crafted ... taste" - what does that even mean?

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin