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It is an age-old tradition to drink wine handed out through a window.
In Santo Spirito, Florence, a restaurant called Babae has reopened one of the area's celebrated wine windows. This tradition of having windows for buying wine dates back to 1559 when Cosimo de' Medici decreed that noble families could sell their wines from their own palaces. The concept was simple - people out on the street would knock on the window embedded in each palace façade, and after passing payment through, a servant would take away any empty bottles, refill them with wine in the cellar and pass them back out. Wine-buying this way used to be quite common, though most have now been shut down; however it’s still possible to experience the traditional Florentine way - with a glass of vino!
