firm tannins, silky tannins, racy tannins....?

[stevebody]

Don't get too involved in trying to understand what some wine writer meant when describing tannins. As Bucko says, writers get bored and start employing new and possibly weird adjectives. All these terms simply describe various stages of the evolution of the tannic acids. "Firm" will be a young, green tannin, just extracted from stems and seeds and unripe. "Sweet" describes tannins that have enough ripeness to balance with the fruit flavors without losing their structure altogether, coupled with a lower level of citric acid. "Racy", as I understand it, means a prominent impression of the tannin and citric acids that create a tanginess more or less balanced by fruit so that the wine tastes "zesty" or "bright".

As wine ages, like Bucko says, the tannins ripen and, like all ripe things, soften and lose their bite. The tannic "melding" is at the heart of why people shell out fabulous Bux for Bordeaux, betting that the nearly always stiff tannins will eventually mellow into something "silky" and wonderful. Don't take this to mean anything bad about tannins, though. Without them, wines taste soft and flabby and just lay there in your mouth or they're so sharp they'll take the enamel off your teeth. Wine needs tannins, acids, fruit, and mineral/"terroir" components. Balance in wine is the name of the game.