To accompany the barbecued chicken at dinner we had a bottle of hastily-purchased 2002 Côtes du Luberon rosé. Initially disappointing because too cold, it became rather nice as the chill wore off. On the label was a URI, not that common in A.O.C. wines (yet), and a quick after-dinner visit to the Val Joanis web site was most rewarding, check it out. It’s well-set-up, good-looking, works in more than one browser, and makes you want to visit the place; why do so many commercial sites fall short on these obvious goals? Also it’s comprehensively bilingual—each page’s Union Jack glyph taking you to the corresponding English page, very good. And an interesting piece of translation-ware; on the page labeled (en Français) Le vignoble and in English The estate (?), Un travail de titan est lancé... becomes The Herculean task of rehabilitation was begun... (boldface theirs). A sloppy translator would have made the task “titanic” but this feels way closer in spirit; language is slippery, slippery, slippery.
