Just a quickie: I laid my hands onto this 8€ bottle and it’s just outstanding for the money. Clos Bagatelle has consistently been a quality leader in the Languedoc, and this, their basic Cuvée Tradition 2010 from Saint-Chinian, is a wine of fabulous intensity. It blends Syrah with Grenache, Carignan and Mourvèdre, and it does indeed start Syrah-like in its savoury meatiness and notes of white pepper. But there are layers of concentrated, attractively spicy dark fruits underneath. No oak thank God, but gobs of character and more seriousness than you’d expect for the price. With its savouriness it’s a great food wine, too.
Beefy, peppery, irony... but fruity too.
Disclosure
Source of wine: own purchase.
Oh, yes! These guys are very good. I used to buy this cuvee, as well as their “prestige” (can’t remember what it’s called but I vaguely recall it was something to do with “Mon Pere”
), very often cca 2002-2005, and they never failed to please. High drinkability factor 
“La Gloire de Mon Pere”, which in itself is a nice name for a bottle of wine. Fully agree on the drinkability factor, and what excited me about this bottle was also that it didn’t sacrifice the savoury rustic element for drinkability. Rather, it drew drinkability precisely from the unfruitiness that many people consider makes a wine poorly drinkable.
Indeed, la Gloire, thank you! Ah, the memories
. 100% with you on this wine and your remarks. The Bagatelle wines, Olivier Jullien, Marlene Soria and, above all, Didier Barral (as well as a handful of others, I’m sure, who do not readily spring to mind at this point) were beacons of light to me in the years when more and more highly-touted wines from the Languedoc seemed to be “oozing” with something or other, displaying “oodles” of this or “gobs” of that 
… (But that was in another country and, besides, I only drink Carema these days 
)
I agree, though the names you mentioned are very diverse: I see Jullien as very fresh and elegant, Barral as somewhat rustic in his occasional VA and bretty overtones. Bagatelle looks like the chunkiest of this group. Did you ever try Virgile Joly? That’s a mineral refreshing style too.
Sure. They are as different as the Terrasses du Larzac is from Saint-Pargoire is from the Hameau de Lentheric
. Barral’s wines are often totally VA-ridden: good for me, I love dirty wines 
. But to keep the comparison a little more pertinent, I probably should have brought up JM Rimbert (again: insane drinkability and no “oodles” in sight) in the first place instead of these other guys… Virgile Joly – heard of, never tasted. Will perk up when I see it somewhere 