How do I validate that a version number is valid using a regexp in bash?

I am trying to validate that the version number is matching a version pattern but it seems that the check fails for some weird reason.

#!/bin/bash
VERSION="1.2.3"
if [[ $VERSION =~ ^(\d+\.)?(\d+\.)?(\*|\d+)$ ]]; then
 echo "INFO:<-->Version $VERSION"
else
 echo "ERROR:<->Unable to validate package version: '$VERSION'"
 exit 1
fi