Deep purple

Dude, did you see the colour of this paper's front page yesterday? It was a promotional for a new car whose new colour is 'Tyrian wine'. Oh yes, that car company that manufactures the Nano. Lucky they didn't have xanthophoric yellow to display on the page. But why on earth have they called the car's signature colour 'Tyrian wine'?

Well, I believe because that's what the colour is called.

Rubbish. There's a purple-red natural dye extracted from sea snails that's called Tyrian purple, royal purple or imperial dye. Tyrian wine - which has nothing to do with the pigment first produced by the Phoenicians in Tyre, Lebanon - is a variety of red wine specially created by Australia's national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, by cross-pollinating grapes of the Spanish wine variety Sumoll and Cabernet Sauvignon.

So maybe the car company uses the colour of the Aussie wine...

Could be. But I think it's simply to impress simple blokes like you who get wowed when someone says he's coloured his walls 'Sangria wine' rather than just 'burnt red'.

Ah, so you noticed my hair! It's Leather black feria.

Do say: I'd like a Prosecco Uric Yellow coloured tie please.

Don't say: Isn't it purple, like, baigani?