Peter Sichel

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Peter M. F. Sichel (September 12, 1922 – February 24, 2025) was a German-American wine merchant and a former U.S. intelligence operative who helped popularize the Blue Nun wine brand. He was born in Mainz to a Jewish family that ran the H. Sichel Söhne wine business, founded in 1857.

After being educated in Germany and England, his parents escaped Nazi Germany to France. At the start of World War II, Sichel was interned in Bordeaux as he was German, but he escaped to the United States via Portugal and Spain and joined the U.S. Army shortly after Pearl Harbor. He worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and helped run intelligence operations in Germany, even using German POWs to infiltrate the country.

After the war, he headed a secret unit in Berlin and reported on Soviet influence in East Germany in 1946. He continued to work for U.S. intelligence in Berlin, Washington, and Hong Kong until 1960, when he left over moral concerns about some CIA actions. He then moved back to the family wine business and made New York City his home, partnering with Schieffelin to bring his wines to the United States.

Sichel helped develop Blue Nun, promoting it as a wine you can enjoy throughout a meal. By the 1980s, U.S. sales reached about 1.25 million cases per year, with worldwide sales around 3 million. He wrote books on German wine and helped found the German Wine Society and the Society of Wine Educators. He also helped bring the Commanderie de Bordeaux to the United States and received the Wine Spectator Distinguished Service Award in 1989; he was president of the International Wine and Spirit Competition in 1991.

He remained involved with wines from Bordeaux, including Fourcas-Hosten, until 2006. He helped arrange the sale of part of the Schieffelin company to LVMH. The Blue Nun brand is even mentioned in a Beastie Boys song. He had three children; one died. His son Alex Sichel was a filmmaker, his daughter Sylvia Sichel is a screenwriter, and another daughter, Bettina, is involved with Laurel Glen Vineyard in California.

Peter Sichel turned 100 in September 2022 and died in New York City on February 24, 2025, at the age of 102.