Bellini

Giuseppe Cipriani's white peach purée and Prosecco, Harry's Bar, Venice, 1948

Origin: Italy

From the journey of Peach.

The Bellini was created by Giuseppe Cipriani, founder of Harry's Bar in Venice, in 1948. The name was chosen because the pale pink of the drink reminded Cipriani of the colour of a saint's toga in a painting by Giovanni Bellini, exhibited at the time in Venice, and the cocktail was named accordingly, a gesture of cultural cross-pollination characteristic of post-war Venetian life. The white peach is not optional and cannot be substituted: its low acidity, extraordinary fragrance, and pale colour produce a cocktail of delicacy entirely impossible to replicate with yellow-fleshed varieties. Harry's Bar uses only fresh white peach purée, made to order when the fruit is in season (roughly June through September in the Veneto), and the proportion is approximately one part purée to two parts Prosecco. The result is a drink of such precision (the Prosecco's fine bubbles carrying the peach's volatile aromatic compounds to the nose before the flavour hits) that any other execution produces something categorically different. The Bellini was designated a Traditional Italian Food Product in the early 2000s. It is the most successful peach cocktail in history and one of the most widely imitated drinks in the world; with the irony that the imitations, made from frozen purée or yellow peach, miss the fundamental point entirely.

Ingredients

Purée

  • 4 very ripe white peaches (white-fleshed varieties only)
  • 1 tsp fresh lemon juice

Cocktail

  • 1 bottle Prosecco Superiore (750ml), well chilled

Method

  1. Peel the white peaches: score an X at the base of each, blanch in boiling water for 20 seconds, then transfer to ice water. The skin will slip off. Halve and stone.
  2. Purée the peach flesh with the lemon juice in a blender until completely smooth. Pass through a fine sieve for the silkiest texture. Taste; it should be intensely fragrant and sweet with just a trace of acid from the lemon.
  3. Refrigerate the purée until very cold; at least 30 minutes.
  4. To assemble each Bellini: pour approximately 40ml of cold white peach purée into a well-chilled Champagne flute. Slowly pour in 80ml of cold Prosecco, tilting the glass slightly as you pour to preserve the bubbles. Stir once, very gently, from the bottom of the glass upward; just enough to combine without losing the effervescence.
  5. Serve immediately. Do not let the glass stand.

Notes

The Bellini is a strictly seasonal drink; it requires white peaches at their summer peak, and no other time. Out of season, the drink cannot be made correctly and should not be attempted with inferior fruit. If white peaches are unavailable, serve something else. Harry's Bar in Venice still closes the Bellini menu when white peaches are no longer in season.

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