Bellini Recipe (extract from The Harry’s Bar Cookbook)

"Like so many things in “the good old days,” making the white peach juice for Bellinis was a lengthy and tedious process. We had a man who did nothing all day but cut up and pit small white peaches and squeeze them with his hands to extract the juice. The juice and pulp were then forced through a chinois – a fine, cone-shaped sieve – to form the rose-coloured elixir that is mixed with Prosecco to make Bellinis."

Never use yellow peaches to make a Bellini and never puree the peaches by machine. Use a food mill or meat grinder to make the white peach pulp and then force it through a fine sieve.

If the peach puree is very tart, sweeten it with just a little sugar syrup (see recipe below).

Refrigerate the puree until it is very cold. Mix it with very cold, dry Prosecco in the proportion of 1 part peach puree to 3 parts wine or, for each drink, 1 ounce (30ml) peach puree and 3 ounces (100ml) wine. Pour the mixture into well-chilled glasses.

Another variation that also work well is a Rossini which is a Bellini using 1 part fresh strawberry puree to 3 parts chilled Prosecco.