Perfect is the enemy of good....
My thought was more along the lines of "You get what you pay for, and sometimes what you pay for is a lot of glitter at the expense of substance." Another way to put it is to say that the world's great wine values - which may be inexpensive or quite pricey - are generally still made by what are essentially agricultural operations, not showplaces. California is the home of showplaces. Meanwhile its agricultural operations are either relegated to producing anonymous plonk because ... well, we want showplaces and don't take the wine seriously otherwise - OR they become cult items that we can't possibly afford.
Edit: All of which is a long way of saying that Europe has its priorities straight when it comes to wine, and we haven't figured it out yet.