Picture:  Amphora found near Crete.  naava.org

“On my first trip criss-crossing the Aegean, I was nursing an ouzo in a small glass and staring into the water, when I suddenly understood the meaning of Homer’s ‘wine-dark sea.’  Homer wasn’t saying that the sea was the color of wine.  He was saying that the sea had the depths found in a cup of wine: that it was mysterious, hypnotic, dangerous.  It drew you in, and you could lose yourself in it.” – Mary Norris, “Greek to Me” January 14, 2019 New Yorker.