I know 5 German words now!

[RyanH]

Which is great, but it has caused me some confusion. People who are just forming an interest in wine very frequently like to get started with sweeter wines as opposed to dry ones. When they ask for what to try, the German whites are almost always mentioned. In my reading, I discovered that there are 5 distinct categories of German QmP wines: Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese (and Eiswein, a.k.a. ice wine, seems to get included at this level), and finally Trockenbeerenauslese.

Following are translations of those 5 terms, and here's where I get confused...

Kabinett - cabinet (referencing cellared wines in cabinets where the best bottles would be locked up.)
Spätlese - late harvest
Auslese - select harvest
Beeren - berries
Trocken - dry

Now from my limited experience, Spatlese, Auslese, and Beerenauslese are all definitely sweeter wines. I have yet to try a Trockenbeerenauslese yet though, so I wonder... is this highest level of German QmP wine, in fact, dry? Or is the name missleading?

And if it is dry, can that be true of the other 4 levels? Is it just sheer dumb luck that the Spatlese, Auslese, and Beerenauslese wines I've tried were all fairly sweet? I'd hate to tell a friend that wants a non-dry wine to get herself a nice bottle of Auslese and find out that they happened to pick a super dry wine by chance.