Homer's Wine-dark Sea. A novel explanation?

One of the most vexing problems in the works of Homer is the mention of a 'wine-dark sea'. The colour of wine can can vary wildly from white, rose, red to black, although the last colour is just a very darkish red. But you would never think that these colours would describe the colour of the sea.

Many were the explanations that have been forwarded, from the conjecture that Ancient Greeks couldn't (yet) see or describe the colour blue (they could: kúanos (κῠ́ᾰνος) which is conventionally translated as 'blue') or Homer wanted to indicate the sea during sunset (not likely: sunset will make the sea seem orange to purple).

[Source: Kiwi Hellenist. See here]

If all translations are - more or less – in agreement (which they are), then maybe we should look at the source. Could Homer himself have been erroneous?

At first glance you could argue that Homer's texts were faultless, though some did find problems. But suppose that Homer needed to adapt words to fit into the metric of his poems.

First. Most translate epi oînops póntos (επί οἶνοψ πόντος) as 'on (the) wine-dark sea', though the phrase actually should be translated as 'on (the) sea, looking like wine', from οἶνος 'wine' and ωπ 'face'. Originally, the phrase was written as epi w(o)īnopa (επί ϝ(ο)ἶνοψ πόντος). The extra consonant, the digamma ϝ was pronounced as 'wau', had dropped out of the epic dialect by the time the Iliad got written down. The digamma also explains the transition form Greek oinos via Latin vinos to our modern word 'wine'.

Second. Suppose Homer never wanted to write 'on (the) sea, looking like wine' but something like 'on (the) brilliant sea' or 'on (the) sparkling sea'. What sort of expression would we find in Ancient Greek?

Then we find aîthops (αἶθοψ) which means 'bright', 'sprarkling' or 'gleaming'. The word is used to signify the gleaming of copper and iron. Its other meaning is the sparkling of wine. Both are attested in Homer's poems.

Maybe, in (some dialects in) Ancient Greece, there wasn't much difference in meaning or even pronounciation of oînops (οἶνοψ) 'wine' and aîthops (αἶθοψ) 'bright'.