Boal is a name given to several varieties of grape

Grape

A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...

 cultivated in Portugal, notably in the production of medium-rich fortified wine

Fortified wine

Fortified wine is wine to which a distilled beverage has been added. Fortified wine is distinguished from spirits made from wine in that spirits are produced by means of distillation, while fortified wine is simply wine that has had a spirit added to it...

s from Madeira Island. On many wine labels of Madeira wine

Madeira wine

Madeira is a fortified Portuguese wine made in the Madeira Islands. Some wines produced in small quantities in California and Texas are also referred to as "Madeira", or "Madera", although those wines do not conform to the EU PDO regulations...

, the variety's name is anglicized as Bual. Madeira from Bual is typically less sweet than that from Malmsey, but more sweet than Sercial

Sercial

Sercial is the name of a white grape grown in Portugal, especially on the island of Madeira. It has given name to the dryest of the four classic varieties of Madeira fortified wine....

 or Verdelho

Verdelho

Verdelho is a white wine grape grown throughout Portugal, though most associated with the island of Madeira, and also gives its name to one of the four main types of Madeira wine...

. The vines are also common in Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 and Spain, where the fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

 is used in the same way for fortified wines.

Maderia Boal

Most of the Boal grown on Madeira is more fully known as Boal Cachudo (a synonym for the Spanish variety Doña Blanca

Doña Blanca

Doña Blanca is a white Spanish and Portuguese wine grape variety that is grown primarily in the northwest Galicia region of Spain and throughout Portugal from the Douro northward...

, though the two may be different grapes), which has been shown by DNA profiling to be identical to the Malvasia Fina grown in the Douro valley.