[nonbel]

>'"the wine-dark sea"...well it doesn't mean anything like you could imagine, for their whole model of colour utterly different from ours.'

Doesn't seem like everyone agrees with this speculation:

>"I'm even less impressed by Gordon's argument: it relies on oinops meaning 'wine-dark'. The trouble is, that's not a firm foundation. Strictly literally, the phrase straightforwardly means 'wine-faced sea', from οἶνος 'wine' + ὄψ 'face'." http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2016/01/colours-in-homer-2...

[gumby]

Indeed, these things are complex and incomplete. However I mentioned it as a non-obvious example of how we can be lured into inaccurate interpretations due to our contemporary assumptions.

(by the way I say "inaccurate" but not "wrong" as the point of contemporary reading of classic texts (or any text) is to find insights into your own states, unless you're a historian or historiographer).

[nonbel]

It seems more likely to be a translation issue to me. This is the first I've heard of it but I'd guess "wine-faced" refers to the shimmering surface rather than the color.

Going with "dark" though, Mare Tenebrosum ("Sea of Darkness") was an ancient name for the Atlantic ocean: http://atlantipedia.ie/samples/mare-tenebrosum/