At some restaurants, the wine list can turn into a trophy case. Bottles sit. Servers hesitate because they don’t want to sound wrong or get stuck in a conversation they can’t finish. Guests take one look, default to the safest choice, and move on.
That’s exactly the scenario general manager and sommelier Fabien Jacob works to avoid at Brasserie Mon Chou Chou in San Antonio’s Pearl District. For him, a wine program isn’t “good” because it looks impressive on paper. It’s good because it moves.
That matters in 2026, when Jacob says he’s seeing the same shifts operators across the country are navigating. “People now are more cautious about wine,” he says. “They’re trying to drink less alcohol, but they’re spending more money per bottle, so they’re drinking better.”
Mon Chou Chou operates in an environment that demands that kind of practicality. The restaurant sits in the middle of the Pearl, a high-traffic district that pulls in locals and destination diners in the same night.
The menu leans into traditional French comfort food while reflecting the regional backgrounds behind the concept, and it changes throughout the year to match seasonality. The dining room, Jacob says, is built for guests who range from confident wine drinkers to people who would rather not pronounce a French appellation out loud.
That mix is one reason Jacob’s role is so central to how the program works. He isn’t operating as a sommelier who swings by a few tables and disappears back into the cellar. He runs the floor and the list. Service strategy and wine curation live under the same leadership, which gives him a clear view of what sells, where the team freezes up, and what guests actually want when they ask for help. It also keeps him grounded in what the job really looks like day to day.
“Eighty percent is just managing numbers and making sure everything is ready and set up for the staff to be successful on the floor,” Jacob says. “They can only be successful if they have all the tools to play with.”
That mindset shapes his leadership philosophy. “To me, leadership is mentorship and empowerment,” he says, describing an approach built around giving his team ownership of the experience. But empowerment doesn’t mean turning every table into a classroom. Part of the job is knowing when to lean in and when to pull back, reading the room and meeting guests where they are.
“It’s a fine line between teaching and being welcoming instead of talking down,” Jacob says. “Sometimes, you can be condescending when you have too much knowledge. Sometimes, the guest is just here to enjoy the moment, not to be taught something. Some people geek out, and some people just want to get their wine.”
That balance shows up most clearly in how Jacob talks about wine’s role in a restaurant. He’s trained as a sommelier, but he doesn’t treat wine as the main event.
“To me, when you come to a restaurant, it’s to enjoy what the chef does,” he says. “The food is the painting. As a sommelier, I always want the wine to be the frame around it. A good frame can enhance a nice painting, and a bad frame doesn’t do it justice.”
That framing doesn’t mean guests aren’t intentional about what they order. In fact, Jacob sees the broader wine market shifting toward more thoughtful consumption.
In Europe, he says, wine has historically been treated as a normal part of everyday meals. In the U.S. and other “New World” markets, it often functioned more as a status marker, with guests ordering by label, reputation or price rather than personal preference or pairing logic.
Now, Jacob says, the conversation is different. Guests are paying closer attention to alcohol content, additives, and how wine is made. Interest has grown in organic, biodynamic, and lower-intervention bottles as part of a broader health-conscious mindset.
He also pushes back on the idea that natural or lower-intervention winemaking is a new concept. “It’s a full circle,” Jacob says. “We started by making the wine naturally, and now we’re actually coming back to that old school of winemaking.”
In his view, that doesn’t mean every restaurant needs to reinvent its list overnight. At Mon Chou Chou, he didn’t walk in and blow up the program. He inherited a list he describes as thoughtful and not overwhelming, with core regions represented and enough range to offer different styles without creating a wall of labels. His focus has been on making sure guests can use it and staff can sell it.
His biggest advice for operators starts with cutting the insider instincts out of list design. “I would prioritize a wine list that is easily digestible for the customer,” Jacob says. The list doesn’t need to be packed with details that only a small slice of guests understand well enough to shape their decision.
“Make it simple,” he says. “It shouldn’t be daunting. It should be inviting.”
Jacob avoids arranging the list by price because of how quickly that can make guests self-conscious. Instead, he prefers a progressive format—light to heavy, dry to sweet—built around how guests actually describe what they want.
It’s also a training advantage, he notes. “You just have to teach them to ask the right questions.”
That training is the bridge between a good list and a list that moves. Jacob spends significant time coaching the front-of-house team, but he isn’t trying to turn every server into a sommelier. He’s giving them a framework and the confidence to guide guests without jargon or making wine feel like a test.
In his view, that same thinking now applies beyond traditional wine. Beverage programs aren’t just about alcohol anymore. Non-alcoholic offerings have to be taken seriously because many guests avoid alcohol for religious, medical, or lifestyle reasons but still want to feel included in the dining experience.
At Mon Chou Chou, the NA program includes nonalcoholic beer, wine, and cocktails, and Jacob says the team approached product selection the same way they approach the rest of the list: by tasting broadly and choosing what fits the market, not his personal preference.
“We tried at least 10 or 20 bottles of nonalcoholic wine,” he says. “Some of them are excellent. Some of them are not to my liking, but you need to find what’s best for your customers and for your market.” His method is direct: involve the whole team and follow the majority. “The best way to do so is to ask everyone, ‘Hey, can you please try these for me and tell me which one you like the best?’ If five of them choose the same one, then take it and that’s it.”
The throughline in all of it—traditional wine, NA options, list structure, staff coaching—is that the program is built for the room Mon Chou Chou actually has. It’s a French brasserie in a busy district, serving a broad mix of guests in a high-volume environment. Jacob’s job is to make the wine work inside that reality, not in an imagined world where every guest is a collector and every server is a wine nerd. If the list feels approachable, if the team feels confident, and if the guest feels heard, then the program moves.
And for Jacob, the point isn’t just selling more bottles. It’s making the experience feel worth it. “We are the only job in the world that can create memories every day,” he says.
