Chef Magazine for Thailand December/January | Page 60

There is only one Venice, a beautiful city whose fame
as a meeting place for artists, writers, royalty, the very
rich, as well as lots of very ordinary Europeans, has long
been the stuff of legend. The majesty of this glorious
city is well documented, but there is another icon which
symbolises Venice and that is the Bellini, a distinctive
cocktail made from a frothy combination of white peach
juice and Prosecco. The drink was first invented in
1930’s by the legendary Guiseppe Cipriani, founder
of the word renowned Harry’s Bar and named for the
Italian artist Giovanni Bellini. If you haven’t had Prosecco
as an “ombretta” (evening cocktail) you haven’t really
experienced Venice!
A few years ago I learnt the art of making these Prosecco
cocktails under the watchful eye of the head barman at
the world-renowned Hotel Danieli. As it was January
and peaches were out of season, he encouraged us to
try instead the Mimosa, a blend of Prosecco with fresh
Sicilian mandarin juice We then tried the Rossini, a blend
of Prosecco and fresh strawberry puree.
Prosecco is a light fresh sparkling wine, low in alcohol
and intensely aromatic. The DOC is for a dry white
wine labelled Tranquille (still), or for the sparkling wines
labelled either Gentile or Frizzante (slightly sparkling) or
Spumante (fully sparkling). The driest wines are labelled
brut, and the sweeter ones “extra dry”. Prosecco is best-
drunk young and should be served well chilled. Prosecco
used to be both the name of the grape and the wine but in
2009 the wine laws of the region were changed and the
grape is now known as Glera. That year the classification
for Prosecco was raised to DOCG Denomination of
Controlled and Guaranteed Origin level the highest
quality level for Italian wines.
The wine is made sparkling using the cuve close (or
tank) method whereby the second fermentation takes
place in a large tank prior to filtration and bottling
under pressure.
The DOC applies to the region, which runs 33km from
the town of Congegliano to the picturesque village of
Valdiobbiandene in the Treviso province of Veneto. There
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