Wine region popularity is substantially driven by marketing and fashion. The number of regions in the world that produce excellent wines are legion; most people have only heard or experienced the most famous and well-marketed. It is difficult to overstate just how expansive the wine producing world is, and most don't export much because there is no market for wines from non-trendy locales.

I have experienced wines I discovered when they were inexpensive become trendy and therefore expensive. I've always just moved on; you'll never run out of obscure wine-producing regions that produce excellent inexpensive wine. The largest practical limit is distribution, but wine has become much more global.

You will find a lot of good wine in countries you might not expect e.g. white wine in Mexico. Many countries that produce superior wine almost never export, such as Switzerland. There are excellent small appellations even in France with brilliant wine that everyone ignores because few people have ever heard of them, so it costs very little if you can find it. Smaller countries in Europe are always at a disadvantage regardless of their wine quality e.g. Portuguese and Spanish wine are very similar in quality and style but Spanish wine commands the higher price.

There isn't nearly as much information about wine on the Internet as you may hope. Absent a substantial marketing effort, it largely isn't discoverable virtually. Even in cases where countries like Uruguay attempt to market their wines, it has minimal visibility to the wine drinking world.

It is an inefficient market with incentives that don't necessarily ensure the best wines for the money are easy to find.

So funny story, a week ago my fiancee had a work trip to Serbia. There she discovered that the country produces sublime wine. Brought back a suitcase full of it and every one of them has been amazing.

Neither of us had heard anything about Serbian wines or that they had any wine production nor that it's really good.

So I'd say there are ton of interesting regions to be discovered.

At a past job I went to Serbia several times and the wine was fantastic. I took a pic of a few of the bottles but could never find them responsibly priced in the US.

There are still biases against new world wines. But its really about finding a something you really like from a less known region. Everyone has preferences, so find one that matches yours.

That said its often hard to find those. I like red wines from the regions near Capetown, SA. You can get some of it in big wine stores, but its hard.