Look out - old red eyes is back! As the smoke blows back in your face and you cough like a seal with a 60-a-day habit, you pull hard on that grim, resolute determination, writes Derek Kingwell.

Barbecues in Britain, particularly here in the North, should be approached with a sense of humour and flexibility.

It's a bit of a hit-and-miss affair eating outside anywhere in this country with summer now as fickle, if not more so, than any other season.

All that said, eating outdoors is fun, so if the weather is good enough for a picnic but you can' t be bothered to leave your own garden, more often than not you plump for a barbecue.

They are a great way of making the most of the long summer evenings and are perfect for easy, informal entertaining.

However, as barbecues are congregating affairs, more than just a couple of bottles are usually required making it extremely uneconomical to try to match a wine for each food type.

With all those powerfully pungent aromas of smoke and strongly-flavoured mouth-marauding marinades, don't waste your money offering expensive fine wines with all their delicate secrets.

Instead, look for inexpensive and inexhaustibly gluggable palate and pocket-pleasers that can adapt to either sun-soaked barbecues or goose-pimpled picnics.

So what should we be looking for in a BBQ wine?

A real winner needs to be bold enough yet nice 'n' easy too, as well as being flexible to adapt to the many different flavours.

It has to be a crowd-pleaser suiting beginners and satisfying the buffs alike and last, but not least, inexpensive - not much to ask for!

The good news? Well, there is plenty of it around and all at £3.99 and under (see tasting notes below).

Gone are the days when wine, even everyday wine, was considered a luxury purchase.

It may have taken until the end of the Second Millennium but wine has finally been adopted as Britain's favourite tipple replacing the hand-pulled pint in the nation's heart.

Since the mid-1980s, with barbecues and wine we have become more aware of what we eat and drink - from bulk-produced sausages to free-range meat, from tin-tainted chemical beers to fresh fruity wines.

This shift in attitude means we are opting for health and quality and this is where wine really comes into its own.

When it comes to watching what we drink, it seems we can' t go wrong if we stick to wine.

Research has shown that a glass of red wine per day reduces the risk of heart disease and it's a well-known fact that a glass of white wine is the tipple with the fewest calories.

More good news - not only is it delicious and relaxing but, in moderation, wine positively does you good.

And always remember this - it is your eyes that look at your chosen wine, it is your nose that smells your chosen wine and it is your mouth that tastes your chosen wine.

If you enjoy it, it is the right choice for you.