Yes, the ancient Greeks knew about the color blue, as do most old world primates. Here is an linguistic explanation of color language around the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMqZR3pqMjg
The sculpture reconstructions you've linked are rather imaginative -- German grad students with UV lights, not chemical reconstructions -- and are probably only vaguely like the original colors. Where original colors have actually survived, in frescoes, etc., the ancients display a reasonable eye for beauty in color.
Yea, I agree the coloring they present in what I linked is quite... ugly. But what I was trying to get at is that it does seem that, at that point, the Greeks could distinguish between the color of wine and the color blue. And that therefore Homer's "wine-dark" is in reference to something other than color.
(I had seen that video before, it's very enlightening.)
> I always considered that phrase in Homer as a poetic flourish, or maybe just something that was a figure of speech in his time period.
I'd say it's a worthy phrase—to put it mildly—whether or not you know what blue is. I wouldn't count it as evidence that they were unfamiliar with the concept of blue.
I always considered that phrase in Homer as a poetic flourish, or maybe just something that was a figure of speech in his time period.