Background
Sichel, Peter Max Ferdinand was born on September 12, 1922 in Mainz, Federal Republican Germany. Came to the United States, 1941. Son of Eugene Hermann and Franziska Louise (Loeb) Sichel.
chairman head president wine merchant
Sichel, Peter Max Ferdinand was born on September 12, 1922 in Mainz, Federal Republican Germany. Came to the United States, 1941. Son of Eugene Hermann and Franziska Louise (Loeb) Sichel.
He was educated in Germany and at Stowe School in England. The firm had offices in London and Bordeaux, and at the start of World World War II, while he was apprenticed to the Bordeaux firm, he was interned as he was Jewish.
He continued to work for the Central Intelligence Agency in Berlin, Washington and Hong Kong until 1960, when he left, saying "I left because the Central Intelligence Agency did things I didn’t like, such as send people into the Ukraine to work in fabricated resistance groups. They were potentially being sent to their deaths. I made a huge fuss." He took over the family wine import business in New York, which he dissolved, instead dealing with Schieffelin, then a large drinks company.
At this time wine was taking off as a drink in America, overtaking fortified wine, and he advertised Blue Nun as a wine you can drink "right through the meal", using widespread advertising.
At its peak in the 1980s, annual sales in the United States reached 1.25 million cases. Peter has appeared often on television in Germany as a witness to the immediate post-war years in Berlin when he was head of the Central Intelligence Agency in Berlin, and wrote several books on German wine and a guide to wine.
He became chairman of the German parent company in 1984. By the 1990s, the Sichel company was sold to another German company, Langguth, and Peter had arranged sale of part of the Schieffelin company to Moët Hennessy — Louis Vuitton. Until 2006 he owned the Bordeaux Château Fourcas-Hosten in Listrac, which he sold to Hermèson
On the Beastie Boys 1992 album Check Your Head there is a musical interlude called The Blue Nun in which a narrator describes a party held in Peter Sichel"s comfortable study in his New York townhouse in which the guests compliment the wine.
This includes samples from Peter"s audio recording "On Wine: How to Select and Serve".
Board directors World Monument Fund, New York, since 1985. President Metropolitan Opera Club, New York City, since 1988. Captain Army of the United States, 1942-1946.
Member German-American C. of Chamber (board directors since 1975), German Wine Society (chairman since 1975), Century Club, Doubles Club.
Married Cuy Hoettler, May 11, 1952 (divorced 1960). Married Stella Spanoudaki, June 1, 1961. Children: Bettina, Alexandra, Sylvia.