Among the many pieces in the magnificent Wallace Collection in London – just round the corner from the offices of Arden Fine Wines in Brook Street – is “The Toper” by the Dutch painter Ferdinand Bol, dated 1650–51.
Born in Dordrecht, Bol is thought to have studied under Rembrandt. His work is similar to and has sometimes been misattributed to Rembrandt’s hand. There are few surviving works by him.
His father in law held positions with the Admiralty of Amsterdam and the wine merchants’ guild, which might explain the skilfully depicted glass of white wine in “The Toper”, the title of which is an archaic word for “(heavy) drinker”. Wine in 17th century Dutch paintings is usually white. The Dutch taste was for sweet white wine. Indeed, so strong was Dutch buying power in France that red grapes were grubbed up and replaced by white in areas such as Sauternes, Bergerac, and Anjou.
Just as they liked their white wines as sweet as honey, the Dutch liked their red wines as dark as midnight. They were not interested in Claret as the English were. But Cahors, the “black wine”, was ideal for Dutch palates.
Not only French wine was imported into Holland. Rhine wine was convenient for Dutch merchants because Rotterdam lies at the mouth of that river. But the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) devastated the Rhineland and little wine was made or exported from here during that period.
Spanish wine was also drunk in Holland. For more than a century Holland was an outpost of the Spanish empire. But at the conclusion of the Eighty Years War in 1648 Spain was forced to accept Dutch independence. Even during the war Spanish wine was sent to Holland.
The Dutch pioneered the use of sulphur to stabilise (sweet) wines in transit.