Web gives wine buffs a whiff 

Paris - Wine lovers stuck in the office will soon be able to imagine themselves strolling through sprawling French vineyards thanks to a new website that triggers smells from a computer gadget. 

The Burgundy wine professionals association will launch the new gimmick, which emits typical vineyard fragrances as web surfers "take an olfactory trip around a Burgundy vineyard", at the end of March, the association said on its website.

The new site marks the debut for a new France Telecom "Perfumed Web" hardware gadget not yet on the market, which creates smells from pastilles in a machine. 

Attached to the PC, it diffuses the fragrance selected by visitors to the site but will not be available to most internet users until 2003 or 2004.

The 12 different smells will not attempt to reproduce the complex "noses" of prestigious Burgundy wines but will try to conjure up for visitors the experience of being at a vineyard, with smells like burning vine shoots or the musty whiff of a wine cellar.