The small wine windows in Florence...history repeats itself

The small wine-windows in Florence...history repeats itself

Do you know the wine-windows?

They are a curiosity of the city of Florence.

A small secret kept in the centuries that we want to reveal. Less famous than the museums and artistic beauties that have always attracted tourists to the Tuscan capital, the wine windows are an unusual way to discover the city.

The wine windows, from the 16th century to the present day

The history of wine-windows takes its roots in the 16th century, we are at the end of the Renaissance that made great Florence and Tuscany all over the world. This is the moment when the Florentine wine producers conceived and started to use these small openings that connected their shops with the street.

Their target? Sell their product directly to the consumer, without going through the innkeepers and taverns, avoiding paying part of the odious taxes provided. From the producer to the consumer you could say!

The Black Death and the usefulness of wine boxes.

With the Black Death of 1630, the "Buchette" also assumed a function of "social distancing", a concept that unfortunately came back to the limelight during the past years of the pandemic.

The design of these small "wine ATM" was done with wisdom, also providing for the size that could allow the passage of a bottle, which was carried empty by the customer, inserted into the socket and returned full. In short, in the XVI century we could already find some of the cornerstones of new methods of consumption:

reuse

zero waste

zero km

All those concepts and buying habits that are coming back to the fore today!