红酒
hóngjiǔ · HSK 3
Red wine
🍷 红酒 = 红 (red) + 酒 (alcohol/wine)
Straight compound: 红 means red, 酒 covers alcoholic drinks. Together they specify red wine. 酒 itself shows 氵(water) beside 酉, an ancient pictograph of a wine jar.
红 — silk radical 糹/纟 + work 工 (phonetic)
红 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The silk radical 糹 (simplified 纟) signals the meaning, since the character originally referred to a kind of pink or light-red dyed silk. The right side 工 supplies the sound. Over time the meaning broadened from the dye color to 'red' in general.
酒 — water 氵 + 酉 (wine vessel)
酒 combines 氵 (water) with 酉, an ancient pictograph of a wine jar with a narrow neck. 酉 alone originally meant fermented liquor, but as it was borrowed for the tenth earthly branch, the water radical was added to keep the 'alcoholic drink' meaning clear.