"fluted" maybe be non-standard terminology.
in the end I got back in touch with the fellow I had been speaking with (I was interviewing the owner of La Carrera bike shop in Toronto about the $50,000 Colnago Futura 2000 road frame they had up for sale. Apparently it sold for more than asking. Crazy.)

anyway, he explained that what he meant by "fluted" (he was describing how these forks were apparently designed by Ferrari for Colnago and came from their own special vibration dampening F1 car suspension design) and it's vibration was that it was shaped like a thin champagne flute - with a thin stem at the drop outs and then going straight up and thickening at the top.

anyway, that seems to be his story and I am sticking with it.

Peter