Refugee, prisoner, wine merchant, spy: Peter Sichel was many things in his long, colorful life, but he was probably most often identified as the man who made Blue Nun one of the most popular wines in the world in the 1970s and ‘80s. At its peak in 1985, 30 million bottles of this slightly sweet German white wine were sold.

By the time Mr. Sichel took charge of his family’s wine business in 1960, he had lived a long, clandestine life. As a 19-year-old German émigré to the United States who volunteered for the U.S. Army the day after Pearl Harbor, Mr. Sichel was recruited to join the O.S.S. as part of an effort to build an American intelligence-gathering force where none existed. For 17 years, first in the Office of Strategic Services during WWII, and then in the Central Intelligence Agency — from its formation in 1947 until he resigned in 1959 — he played a crucial role in gathering intelligence for the United States. He died on Feb. 24 at his home in Manhattan, at 102.