Prosecco is the sparkling wine traditionally used in a Bellini cocktail.
A classic Bellini combines white peach purée with Prosecco, an Italian sparkling wine. The drink is usually served chilled in a flute or other sparkling-wine glass, and its pale pink color comes from the peach mixture. It is associated with Harry’s Bar in Venice, where Giuseppe Cipriani is widely credited with creating it in the mid-twentieth century.
Cipriani reportedly named the drink after the Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini because the cocktail’s color reminded him of a warm hue in one of the artist’s paintings. Champagne is sometimes substituted in modern versions, but that creates a variation rather than the traditional formula. White peach quality matters: the original style emphasizes fragrant, ripe peaches rather than a generic peach-flavored syrup.