John Sanders

National Sales Manager

When John, a native of Lowcountry South Carolina, attended the University of South Carolina to study the hospitality industry, he took a class in country club management and fell in love with the concept of food and wine pairings.  While interning at Forest Lake Club in Columbia, S.C., he took on tasting with wine reps to help build the club’s wine list. Upon graduation with a B.S. in Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management and a specialty in Country Club Management, John went straight to work in white tablecloth restaurants as a front- and back-of-the-house manager. Eventually, in order to spend more time with his family, in 2005 he moved to selling wine in the distribution channel. He specialized in selling the wines of small but growing family-owned wineries by telling their stories and building relationships. Through that work John met Axel and Walter Schug in 2006.

Axel and John share the same passion of fishing, as well as food and wine pairing, and after a trip chasing redfish on the fly in Charleston, a friendship/partnership was born. John joined Schug in 2015 to expand the winery’s distribution and relationships on the eastern seaboard.  When he is not selling wine, you can find him with a fly rod in hand alongside his dad or Axel or cooking his catch for his wife, Elaine, and their daughter, Chloe.