Haaack ... haa ... haa ... HAARRRGH!

Hairball, or overcooked turkey? Either way, you need a drink.

Although the major advance in turkey technology lately has been the "cook the stuffing separately" trick (it's faster, and your bird will not become a hotbed of bacterial reproduction), there are some other ways to make the annual chore of choking down the turkey a bit more pleasurable.

I'm talking wine, of course, to go with your Thanksgiving day meal.

Let's approach this systematically. We'll go over the menu and figure out the vinous requirements.

What's on the table? Everything! We have an essentially neutral meat (the turkey, turkey) surrounded by a cast of characters that range from the equally bland but rich, like mashed potatoes (hey, they're rich if you do it right) to the bittersweetness and, yes, tannin of fresh cranberry sauce. Sweet potatoes are sweet even without the mini-marshmallows, mashed turnips are scary, creamed onions look like eyeballs -- it's not getting any easier. I say, cover it all with gravy and start drinking.

Since the side dishes are the supporting cast that make the big star look good, we have to pay attention to them when choosing the wine. The range of flavors is varied, but not too broad. In other words, there is a narrow bandwidth of flavors; nothing really delicate, nor intense. What does that mean, wine-wise? No delicate or intense wines. It does tend to be a fairly rich meal, so the wine should have a decent amount of acid. Also, I like to have both a red and a white on hand, since there's usually a crowd, and you'll want to make everybody happy. General rules for a Thanksgiving wine: Medium to full-bodied white with good acid, medium-bodied red with decent acid.