If you are from an environment where you have been taught to say sweet wine = cheap wine, you might want to have a deeper look at Rhine and Mosel white wines. This is the only region I would drink sweet wines. Riesling need to have sweetness as very dry Riesling is quite tart. Among the quality wines in these regions, the sweeter ones are the more expensive. Outside this region, it is hard to find this many choices of aromatic sweet wines.

For very sweet Mosel wines look for Ice Wine - made in years when early freeze occurs freezing grapes on the wine- a dessert wine= Mosel wines have several tiers of sweetness.

If not driving Cochem has a winery smack in the center of town - Hieronimi that can be visited to be versed in Mosel wines and go to the tasting room at the end.

Can't advise you on the Moselle but you might be interested in our 2014 trip. We flew in and out of Amsterdam, also for frequent flyer reasons, for our vacation in Germany.

We spent two days on the Rhine, staying in the village of Bacharach. We spent one day on the river, taking a cruise up to Boppard, and the other just poking around the village. The rest of the trip was to other places.

Point is, we rented our car in Amsterdam and dropped it back there. The drive from Amsterdam to Bacharach took 4.5 hours plus the time we took to stop and see the cathedral in Cologne. On the return, we drove from Baden-Baden back to Amsterdam. It was supposed to take 6.5 hours but it took 7.5 because of construction.

We rented from Hertz/Thrifty/Dollar which has an office off-airport. That office let us take the car into Germany. We stayed in the Hampton Inn Amsterdam Airport going in and out. It has a free shuttle to/from the airport (must reserve a time)and is a 15 minute walk to the car rental office. So the logistics worked well.

a mere 35 years ago I too was ignorant of German wines but a very kind German industrialist took me into his cellar... 35 years later and half a degree in wine has helped.

You will find everything from bone dry to super sweet on the Mosel and Rhine, though Mosel offers slightly more feminine fruity versions.

If you want something approaching a local tasting room you need to go to Bernkastel-Kues where north of the river just east of the bridge is a wine library where E10 (maybe more) gets you about 150 wines.

From my point of view as long as the wines are spatlase (writen on bottle) or higher they can be troken to fineherb and they are absolutely the best white wines you can find outside of Alsace.

Sweet wines are an aquired taste but then so is the food of the region, putting the two together should allow you to enjoy some fantastic flavours.

bone dry Mosel wines? Very few -I never tasted one. Expect typically a delicate but not overly sweet taste in the best Mosels.

And what about Liebfraumilch - the rage in US in 70s- some swill thought of back then.

German wines "too sweet"? I think you have never tasted the really good, crisp and dry German whites. LOL - we know what to export and what to keep for our own consumption...

Everyone, again thanks so much for all your detailed input and personal likes/dislikes. This is what I find so very valuable on Fodors. Im continuing to research your suggestions. Except for the ice wine. I have a Canadian friend who just loves it and she always brings or serves some. I cant stand it and have to pretend I love it to be polite! Ugh.

Getting into the wine thing further, the first wine I ever had was a Piesporter Goldtropfen Spatlese. I liked it well enough that I started having it regularly even though it was a bit hard to find in California at the time. There are lots of whites that I like and many that I just don't care for. I completely agree however that a good paring with the right food can make a wine very enjoyable!

So now, I'm going to look at a detailed map of the river valleys and see if I should change my lodging on the Rhine and where to pick up/drop a car vs. trains.

quokka, give me some recommendations! I will love to try them out!

It is very possible to confuse "fruit" with "sweetness", the mouth seldom gets training in this area.

If a wine says Troken it is dry, that can include fruit or not, but it will be dry.

"Never had a bone dry Mosel" so many wines so little time :-)

"Liebfraumilch" ....shudders....

Boppard is ok, but for wine you will do better at Ruddesheim.