Opened for just over a year now, Aleksander shows much promise as a winery. When I visited last year, they had 4 wines on the shelf: a white, a red and two fruit wines. Now their shelves are brimming with a wide range of wines one for every taste and budget; the fruit wines are also still around. But let’s focus for the moment on their Cabernet Franc. I am noticing, during my visit in August ‘06, that the ’05’s are starting to come out; in fact, down in the Lake Erie North Shore area, many ’05 reds were seeing the light of day by mid-summer 2006, probably due to the very little contact with oak – some as little as a month - thus creating a fruitier version of the wines. Some say it is because the American palate (their primary consumer) is getting away from the heavily wooded wines. This Franc follows that fruitier model to a tee. The nose is raspberry with sweet cherry and while the raspberry dissipates in the mouth, the cherry follows right through on the palate, leaving you with a light, fruity, slightly tannic wine – easy for afternoon sipping and great with mild to medium cheeses.