People tend to fall into two camps with barbecues. The first, the pro camp, get all excited about crisscrossed steaks, the perfect banger, bananas and chocolate wrapped in silver foil and – okay, then – just one more bottle of rosé from the cool bag.

The second, the miserable lot, think only of a childhood spent watching as dad tried to rescue another rotten weekend with the last firelighter and a bottle of meths, or of a particularly virulent bout of “Of course it’s done” disease after a somewhat laissez-faire approach to cooking chicken.

If you are in the first group, read on: this is for you. For those in the second, consider this therapy. It can, and will, get better. There is another way.

It’s called Els Tres Tombs. It’s about 25 miles west of Barcelona. And it’s the most perfect barbecue experience you’ll ever have.

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The premise is simple: as an add-on to selling the warm red wine and dangerously drinkable cava that its small vineyard produces, Tres Tombs has erected 18 kilns for your barbieing pleasure. On site are an outdoor stove where huge paellas are prepared in vast black lids, plenty of benches, a few chickens and a peacock. And that, apart from the shop, which we will get to in a minute, is pretty much it. The idea – you bring your own food, you make your own fire, you put the two together and you’re as happy as Spanish Larry.

Now, those of you in the second group, the BBQ cynics, might interject here to ask: “Why on earth would you bother traipsing miles from Barcelona with plastic bags full of raw meat and prawns, when all you have to look forward to is cooking the stuff yourself?”

As usual, you’re missing the point.

To be here – among the families, the kids with bare feet playing on the swings, the imposing matriarchs with their headscarves and voluminous skirts, the men grouped round the fire, staring into the flames, arguing over tong technique and passing round the porron (a traditional decanter used to share wine by pouring the juice straight into your throat from its thin spout) – is to be part of local, rural Spain. Not the Spain of the city or of the tourist posters, but the Spain of the family, of three or four generations gathered round a huge table, an eating, drinking, shouting community of noise and flavour.

To prove it, sat next to us were three old boys playing dominoes, their ears growing longer and hairier by the hour. They looked as if they’d been playing every weekend for years. They looked as if they’d got years left in them, too. As the place filled up around them, they simply took another sip of wine and began another game.

The whole thing couldn’t be further away from the barbecue experience of your back garden. There are no anxious glances toward the heavens, no rages at the other half because they got the wrong sort of coal from the garage, no timers clacking out the correct duration for a baked potato. It all seems so simple.

Here’s the drill. For £2 a head, you get a grill, and the right to be there.

Find your plot, and your tables, then start the fire – there’s loads of dried wood and vines scattered about the place. While you’re waiting for a manageable heat, stroll over to the store and treat yourself to a bottle or four of their most expensive cava, a crisp sparkler with vanilla and grasses, for all of £3 a pop.

Near the door is a basket with 15 or so unlabelled bottles of red. A sign says: “Cabernet, €2.50”. The cheapest plonk they do, which I suspect would be perfectly quaffable, is yours for a quid. Chorizo and garlic hang from the ceiling; potatoes, eggs, olives and condiments are stacked on shelves; wine barrels big enough to house a family of four line the walls. The entire establishment hasn’t seen an inch of pretension in years.

During the week, Tres Tombs gets on with the serious business of making wine. This is a weekend-only, blink-and-you-miss-it affair – by 6pm, the kilns are being swept clean and the car park is emptying. In those few hours, however, it will change your idea of what a barbecue should be about.

Travel details: EasyJet (www.easyjet.co.uk), BMI Baby (0871 224 0224, www.bmibaby.com) and Jet2 (0871 226 1737, www.jet2.com) all fly to Barcelona. From the city, take the A2 north, which merges into the B24 toward Vilafranca del Penedes. Take the Vallirana exit on the N340a and, after 20 minutes or so, you’re in wine country, with vineyards either side of the road. Up ahead, you’ll see the name of a vineyard, Vallormosa, on the side of a house. Eventually, you reach the village of Avinyonet del Penedes; there’s a small sign for Els Tres Tombs on the left.

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