Boal is a name given to several varieties of grape cultivated in Portugal, notably in the production of medium-rich

fortified wine Fortified wine is a wine to which a distilled spirit, usually brandy, has been added. In the course of some centuries, winemakers have developed many different styles of fortified wine, including port, sherry, madeira, Marsala, Commanda ...

s from

Madeira Island Madeira is a Portuguese island, and is the largest and most populous of the Madeira Archipelago. It has an area of , including Ilhéu de Agostinho, Ilhéu de São Lourenço, Ilhéu Mole (northwest). As of 2011, Madeira had a total population of ...

. On many wine labels of

Madeira wine Madeira is a fortified wine made on the Portuguese Madeira Islands, off the coast of Africa. Madeira is produced in a variety of styles ranging from dry wines which can be consumed on their own, as an apéritif, to sweet wines usually consumed ...

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

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.winepros.com.au. The grape is grown in diminishing quantities ...

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. At the turn of the 20th century it was the most widely planted whi ...

. The vines are also common in Portugal and Spain, where the fruit is used in the same way for fortified wines.

Madeira 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 (Spanish "White Lady", also known as Dona Branca in Portuguese) is a white Spanish and Portuguese grape variety that is grown primarily in the northwest Galicia region of Spain and throughout Portugal from the Douro northward. The ...

, though the two may be different grapes), which has been shown by

DNA profiling DNA profiling (also called DNA fingerprinting) is the process of determining an individual's DNA characteristics. DNA analysis intended to identify a species, rather than an individual, is called DNA barcoding. DNA profiling is a forensic tec ...

to be identical to the Malvasia Fina grown in the Douro valley.

Notable Boal

Buckingham Palace Buckingham Palace () is a London royal residence and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. It ...

holds 25,000 bottles of wine, the oldest being a bottle of bual from 1815.

References

{{Reflist Dessert wine White wine grape varieties Madeira wine

Madeira Boal

Notable Boal

See also

References