It's somewhat legit. I've done some blind taste testings with friends. The general consensus was that a $9-14 bottle almost always tastes better than a $5 bottle and that a $20+ bottle tastes better than a $14 bottle about half the time. Once you go above that it's a lot harder to tell but my friend who works in a wine store was pretty good at ranking bottles by cost blindly; even though she didn't think the most expensive tasted the best she could still tell the difference.
That said I think most critics are full of shit. If you want to learn about wine talk to someone who actually makes it or sells it.
That said I think most critics are full of shit. If you want to learn about wine talk to someone who actually makes it or sells it.