• May 31, 1976
• Vol. 5
• No. 21

Lookout

Peter Hanns Kornell's pet peeve is "wine buffs who don't know what the heck they're doing. They pick up a glass of wine, smell it, then put it down and say it's a good wine without ever tasting it." At 13, Peter's opinions are as sophisticated as his palate—he is an official taster for his father, whose cellars in Napa Valley, Calif. have been producing an award-winning champagne for four generations. (It is sold under the name Hanns Sehr Trocken.) Says his father proudly, "We all have sparkling burgundy in our veins." Peter got his first taste of the grape when he was 5 and his father began asking his opinion, even though he usually replied, "Daddy, this doesn't taste good." But his father trusted him, and Peter now spends most of his free time learning and helping with all aspects of champagne production. Last year, Peter visited France and Germany to see where the most famous champagnes are born but came back home stubbornly loyal to American vineyards. "French champagnes are only a name," says Peter, "and that's it." A sixth-grader who plays basketball, Peter plans to attend an agriculture college to prepare for taking over the family's cellars one day. "I wouldn't mind being in pro basketball," muses Peter, "but it's a short life. What would I have to fall back on? I think I'll stick to the champagne business."

Sarah Patterson, 17, has already achieved success most adult writers seek for a lifetime. Her first book, The Distant Summer—scribbled in longhand when she was 14—will be published this month. The romantic novel has been chosen by two book clubs, and producer David Susskind has purchased film rights. The story is about a young English girl who falls in love with a flier during World War II. Sarah, who was born in Leeds, England, began writing at age 7, encouraged by her dad, author Jack Higgins (his pen name), who she says had a habit of "leaving piles of paper and pencils around in an obvious way." She is already halfway through her second novel, The Mirror Image, a spy story set in Cornwall and France. Though neither Summer nor Image contains sex scenes, Sarah doesn't rule them out for future projects, but "only if it is right for the story. Some people get a kick out of writing about sex. I don't." Upon graduation from high school this summer, Sarah plans to forgo college and spend the year writing in a newly purchased family house on the Channel Island of Jersey. There, she may well be Britain's youngest tax exile.