What is in a Bellini?

Just two ingredients: Prosecco and white peach purée. The International Bartenders Association (IBA) lists 100 ml of Prosecco to 50 ml of white peach purée, served in a chilled flute.

Who invented the Bellini?

Cipriani, the company that runs Harry's Bar in Venice, says Giuseppe Cipriani created it in 1948, inspired by the Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini. Wikipedia is more cautious and dates it to sometime between 1934 and 1948.

What is the ratio for a Bellini?

Two parts Prosecco to one part peach purée. That's the ratio given by the IBA, the Prosecco DOC consortium and Eataly's account of Cipriani's method.

Can you make a Bellini without fresh white peaches?

Yes. BBC Good Food's recipe allows peach nectar instead of purée, and Cookie and Kate says thawed frozen peaches or yellow peaches work too. Yellow peaches give a golden rather than pink drink.

Should a Bellini have ice?

Not in the glass. The IBA stirs the purée and Prosecco over ice in a mixing glass, then pours the drink into a chilled flute. Wikipedia describes it as served chilled, without ice.

Bellini: Recipe, Ratio and History of the Peach Cocktail

A Bellini is a Venetian cocktail of Prosecco and white peach purée, usually two parts wine to one part fruit, served in a chilled flute. It was created at Harry’s Bar in Venice and needs no spirits, syrups or bar tools beyond a blender. Below: the ratio from the people who set the standard, the method, what to do when white peaches aren’t in season, and the drink’s family of fruit variations.

The Bellini ratio

The standard sources agree on the proportions:

Source	Prosecco	Peach	Ratio
International Bartenders Association (IBA)	100 ml	50 ml white peach purée	2 : 1
Consorzio Prosecco DOC	10 cl Prosecco DOC	5 cl peach purée	2 : 1
Eataly, describing Cipriani’s method	Two parts	One part fresh peach purée	2 : 1
BBC Good Food	1 bottle (tops up 6 flutes)	Flute about 1/3 full of purée or nectar	about 2 : 1

In US measures, 100 ml is about 3.4 fluid ounces and 50 ml about 1.7 ounces. Cookie and Kate’s home recipe uses 2 ounces of purée per flute and tops it with Prosecco, which lands in the same place. A 750 ml bottle of Prosecco makes about seven IBA-size Bellinis.

In our view, the 2-to-1 ratio is right for ripe, sweet peaches. If your purée is thin or tart, we’d use a little more of it rather than add sugar.

How to make a Bellini

The IBA method

Put the white peach purée in a mixing glass filled with ice.
Add the Prosecco.
Stir gently, then pour into a chilled flute. The IBA lists no garnish.

The Prosecco DOC consortium is more relaxed: it says to make the drink in a mixing glass or straight in the serving glass, stirring gently. Wikipedia describes the classic serve as chilled but without ice, made by pouring the purée into the glass, adding the sparkling wine and stirring gently.

Tip: Prosecco foams up when it hits the thick purée. We’d pour it slowly down the side of the flute, wait for the foam to settle, then top up.

Making the peach purée

Cookie and Kate’s recipe uses 4 medium ripe peaches (about 1½ pounds) for a bottle of Prosecco:

Peel the peaches, halve them and remove the pits. The site says peeled peaches make the best purée.
Blend until completely smooth.
Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Pour 2 ounces (¼ cup) into each flute, top with chilled Prosecco and stir gently.

That makes about 2 cups of purée, which Cookie and Kate says keeps for about 5 days in the fridge. Make the purée ahead, but add the Prosecco only when you serve, so the drink stays bubbly.

When white peaches are out of season

Eataly says Cipriani was inspired by the region’s fragrant white peaches, and Cipriani itself says he made it from the “small white peaches” he loved. According to Wikipedia, the Bellini began as a seasonal special at Harry’s Bar and became a year-round drink only after a Frenchman started shipping fresh white peach purée to the bar in Venice and its New York sister.

At home, the sources offer several workarounds:

Frozen peaches. Cookie and Kate says you can make Bellinis with frozen peaches, as long as they’re good quality, not freezer-burned. Thaw them completely before blending (3½ to 4 hours at room temperature or overnight in the fridge). A bonus: the purée is already cold.
Yellow peaches. Authentic Bellinis use white peaches, Cookie and Kate notes, but yellow ones make what the site calls golden Bellinis.
Peach nectar. BBC Good Food’s recipe lists “peach purée or peach nectar”.
Bottled white peach purée. The year-round Bellini at Harry’s Bar itself relied on shipped purée, as Wikipedia tells it.
Another fruit. The Prosecco DOC consortium says the peach can be replaced with any other seasonal fruit, which is how the variations below came about.

In our view, a good frozen white peach purée beats an underripe fresh peach every time. Nectar is the easiest option for a crowd, but it’s sweeter and thinner, so we’d choose a Brut Prosecco to balance it.

Which Prosecco to use

The Bellini is a Prosecco drink: the IBA, the consortium and Cipriani’s own story all name it. Prosecco is a sparkling white wine from northeast Italy, made mainly from the Glera grape, and our Prosecco guide explains how to read the label. A few points that matter here:

Sweetness. Brut is the driest common style, Extra Dry is a little sweeter. Ripe peaches are already sweet, so we’d go for Brut.
Price. The purée covers much of the wine’s finer detail. We’d skip the expensive Superiore DOCG bottles and use a good everyday DOC; our list of the best Prosecco under $20 has critic-scored options.
Temperature. Both the wine and the purée should be cold. The Prosecco DOC consortium recommends serving Prosecco at 6 to 8°C (about 43 to 46°F).
Vegan guests. Not every Prosecco is vegan; see our guide to vegan Prosecco.

Where the Bellini comes from

Harry’s Bar. According to Cipriani, Giuseppe Cipriani opened Harry’s Bar in Venice on May 13, 1931, and Italy’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage declared it a national landmark in 2001. Cipriani lists Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles, Truman Capote and Peggy Guggenheim among the bar’s famous guests.

The drink. Cipriani’s heritage page says that in 1948 Giuseppe Cipriani, inspired by the Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini, made a pink fruity drink by puréeing small white peaches. Eataly says the first Bellini was poured in the summer of 1948. Wikipedia gives a wider window of 1934 to 1948, and says Cipriani named it after the 15th-century painter because its pink color reminded him of one of the painter’s works. Wikipedia also notes that marinating fresh peaches in wine is an Italian tradition.

The same restaurant gave the world beef carpaccio, which Cipriani says was also named after a Venetian painter.

Bellini variations

The IBA lists three official variations on its Bellini page, each swapping the peach for another fruit:

Variation	Fruit (per the IBA)
Rossini	Fresh strawberry purée
Puccini	Fresh mandarin orange juice
Tintoretto	Fresh pomegranate juice

The Prosecco DOC consortium’s Rossini recipe keeps the Bellini’s proportions: 10 cl Prosecco DOC to 5 cl fresh strawberry purée, gently mixed and served in a flute with a strawberry. For these and other drinks, including the Aperol Spritz and Hugo, see our roundup of Prosecco cocktails. If you want orange juice instead of fruit purée, that’s a mimosa.

Serving Bellinis

Glass: a chilled flute, as both the IBA and Wikipedia specify.
When: we think the Bellini works best as an aperitif or at brunch, where its lower wine content per glass than a straight pour of Prosecco is an advantage.
For a crowd: make the purée ahead, keep it and the Prosecco in the fridge, and pour to order. Pre-mixed Bellinis lose their fizz.
Food: in our view, salty snacks such as prosciutto, olives and potato chips are the best match for a fruity, lightly sweet sparkling drink.

Note: A Bellini is still a glass of wine. Two parts Prosecco in a 150 ml drink is 100 ml of wine, so pace yourself as you would with any sparkling wine.