I always felt it was not a color comparison, but an intensity comparison. Wine is dark. The sea is darker than the sky and the pale land. Therefore, wine is to cup as sea is to world, lying dark in and all around it.
I don't have enough (any) greek to know. But it does point out some other odd color descriptions in Homer. Or the possibility that he was just color blind hah.
I always felt it was not a color comparison, but an intensity comparison. Wine is dark. The sea is darker than the sky and the pale land. Therefore, wine is to cup as sea is to world, lying dark in and all around it.
Same here. Something like, 'the sea is dark (rich, profound) like wine is dark', not 'the sea is the same colour as wine'.
I think two things are relevant: 1. The phrase is “wine-dark”, not “wine-coloured” and 2. The Greeks didn’t have a word for blue.
γλαυκός?
This theory is discussed more here: https://radiolab.org/podcast/211213-sky-isnt-blue/transcript
I don't have enough (any) greek to know. But it does point out some other odd color descriptions in Homer. Or the possibility that he was just color blind hah.
But they didn’t have a word for blue. Several words for blue, yes. But not one.
I'm inclined to go with 2. In any case Ancient Greek colours did not always map onto ours.
There are a number of lovely kraters with an inner rim of ships so that when the bowl was full the ships looked as though they were sailing on the wine-dark sea. Some pictures here: https://www.petersommer.com/blog/another-thing/ships-on-Santorini-krater
Four colly (coaly, dark-colored) birds / Four calling birds