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-colored elixir that is mixed with Prosecco to make Bellinis. Prosecco is the Italian version of champagne and comes from the region around Treviso. The Bellini was a seasonal drink then, available from June through September. Now we are lucky–we can get excellent frozen white peach purée from France and serve Bellinis year-round.

Never use yellow peaches to make a Bellini and never puree the peaches by machine. If you can't find the frozen puree, you'll just have to produce it the old-fashioned way.

Use a food mill or meat grinder to make the pulp and then force it through a fine sieve. If the peach purée is very tart, sweeten it with just a little sugar syrup (see sorbet recipe, page 278). Refrigerate the purée 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 (30 ml) peach puree and 3 ounces (100 ml) wine. Pour the mixture into well-chilled glasses.