Far from there being a 'breed standard', on the contrary wines, at any rate above a certain quality level, are highly individualised products with different wines having quite distinct "personalities", so to speak. If you take something like the Cotes de Nuits area in Burgundy, in a strip of land which is about 20 miles long and 1 or 2 miles wide, in addition to more generic local appellations, you have over 150 "premiers crus" and "grands crus", each of them with a distinct style and taste. Burgundy is a little extreme in that vineyards are comparatively quite small there but it is also the case elsewhere that individual wines, above a quality level, are quite distinct from one another. There are, of course, common traits among wines from a certain area using the same grape(s) but there is not a single prototype to which wines from the area aspire to.

Personal taste will be just as important to determine what you go for. For instance, as far as white wines are concerned, I tend to prefer crisp, clean, almost "metallic" types of wines, viz. the kind of wines with which Sauvignon blanc would tend to be associated. Others might prefer more unctuous, buttery type wines which might push them more in the direction of Chardonnay-based wines. For reds, I tend to go for plummy/woody/earthier type wines, so you are more likely to see me sipping on a Burgundy-style Pinot noir or, in a coarser style, a French Malbec (i.e. Cahors). Others who prefer "spicier" type wines might perhaps be more attracted towards Syrah/Shiraz-based wines, etc...
So, yes, personal tastes will be a significant determinant in the kind of wines that one goes for.

Within a particular style, what are usually regarded as indicators of quality are going to be things such as complexity and balance. Thus, a wine that combines hints of various flavours (=complexity) rather than being mono-dimensional in taste, which avoids being over-sweet, over-fruity, over-acidic, etc... but balances all these elements well, which has a long finish (i.e. where the taste lingers in the mouth rather than disappearing as soon as it hits your tongue) is likely to be regarded as a better quality wine.

Does that mean that this is something that one always looks for and that it is "wrong" to like simpler, easy-drinking wines? No, of course not. If you are having lunch outside on a hot summer day, a simple, light, easy-drinking wine will most likely fit the bill infinitely better than a full-bodied, complex and demanding wine. This is not fundamentally different to choosing a restaurant. Sometimes, what you want is just a bistro offering simple but well-made dishes. At other times, you might prefer something a little bit more ambitious and "fine-dining" oriented. The same is true for wines. But in the same way as there are poor-quality restaurants which provide dishes badly cooked and using poor ingredients, there are also poor quality wines, badly made, where corners are cut (eg: excessive sugar added to raise the alcohol contents, excess oak being used to flavour the wine, etc...)