Can Venice ever be Venice without the Bellini? And what is the Bellini without the Cipriani??

To my delight, I spent an afternoon in Venice sipping fresh Bellinis at the Cipriani hôtel, yes the one and only, George Clooney’s pied à terre when in  this beautiful floating city. 

  I was accompanying a group of ladies from India on their luxury jaunt, three cameras slung around my neck.  Today, we would learn the art of the bellini from the man who made the first one, the OG bartender himself.

It was mellow day, late in the summer  and the wooden speedboats felt very chic as we water taxied it across lagoons to the Belmond Cipriani hotel, stepping  into the elegant boat house.

The Hotel is more boutique than grand.  Hushed, but not overwhelming.  Quiet luxury, a lawn sprawls with  scattered garden chairs and pretty flowers; manicured to look just like the garden in someone’s home.  It was a private place, and I could very easily picture George and Leo lounging about reading a book under the sun, and sipping ……bellinis. 

The Bellini cocktail was created in 1948 by Giuseppe Cipriani, founder of Harry’s Bar in Venice, Italy. Cipriani named the drink after the 15th-century Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini, inspired by the rosy colors in Bellini’s paintings and the drink’s own pale pink hue. The Bellini is made with fresh white peach puree and Prosecco. And some peach schnapps.

And it’s that simple. 

Or is it ?

The charming Italian hotel staff guided us to the class and I was upfront with my cameras

 We gasped at the mound of  beautiful white peaches; large, velvet blush white orbs, compellingly fragrant. 

It hurt to pound them with a large wooden mortar and then blend them heartlessly into pulp, but blend we did, mercilessly  in a large glass blender.  The handsome Italian bartender laughed at our big eyes as the delicate  pink flesh turned into nectar.  

And then it was just a matter of the  right Prosecco, and those goblets. 

Little antipasti were served and we felt as chique and élégant as all the stars who sip bellinis at Harry’s Bar.