Wine Tasting in Southampton: What to Expect at a Mango Wine & Thai Tapas Night
- 23 hours ago
- 4 min read
Our wine tasting nights in Southampton have been on a break over the Summer, and we’ve had quite a few people asking when the next one would be. So we're excited for it to be back.
Our next Wine & Thai Tapas Tasting Night is Friday 16 October 2026 at Mango Portswood.
If you’ve never been to one before, it’s probably worth explaining what we mean by a Mango wine tasting because it's definitely not sitting in rows, swirling glasses and trying to identify obscure tasting notes.
It’s much more like going out for dinner, with six little wine discoveries built into the evening.
Six dishes. Six wines.
You come along with whoever you’d normally choose to have dinner with (friends, a date, family) and instead of ordering from the menu, we take care of everything for you.
Across the evening, we bring out six different dishes, one by one, each paired with a different wine chosen to complement the flavours on the plate.
Some will be Mango favourites you might recognise from our menu, while others are created especially for the tasting night so there’s always something new to try. And every now and then, if one of our specials goes down particularly well, it might just find its way onto a future Mango menu.
The wines will take you through a mix of styles as the evening unfolds. That might mean white, red, rosé or orange wine along the way. We’ll usually begin with an apéritif or sparkling wine, and finish the evening with dessert and a dessert wine or digestif.
Not knowing exactly what you’ll be eating & drinking is part of the fun.
Do I need to know anything about wine?
Not at all. All you need is a willingness to try something new.
Our wine hosts will come around throughout the evening and tell you a little about each wine, where it comes from and why it has been paired with that particular dish.
How involved you get is entirely up to you.
You can ask questions, compare what you’re tasting and pick up some new wine knowledge as you go. Or you can simply enjoy six glasses of wine, six dishes and a fun evening with the people at your table.
There’s no test at the end!
What happens at a Mango wine tasting in Southampton?
The tasting starts promptly at 7.30pm, but we recommend arriving from around 7pm.
That gives you time to get settled, catch up with whoever you’re with and perhaps start with a G&T before the tasting begins.
Once we get going, the food and wines are brought to your table gradually throughout the evening, giving you time to actually taste and enjoy each pairing rather than rushing through dinner.
We normally finish at around 10pm.
If you’ve got places to be afterwards, that’s your cue. If not, you’re very welcome to stay on and carry on the evening at Mango.
Why pair wine with Thai food?
Thai food gives us a lot to play with.
Sweetness, chilli, citrus, herbs, coconut, spice, salt and umami can all completely change the way a wine tastes and vice versa.
That’s one of the reasons these nights are so much fun. Rather than simply tasting six wines on their own, you get to see what happens when the right food is put alongside them.
Sometimes the pairing is obvious and sometimes it’s unexpected. And occasionally a wine you might never have ordered yourself ends up being your favourite of the night.
Meet the people behind the wine
The wine side of the evening is hosted by our friends at Portal, Dingwall & Norris, independent wine merchants based just down the road in Emsworth.
We’ve been working with them since we first opened Mango nearly 20 years ago.
They genuinely care about the wines they choose and the people and places they source them from, and over the years we’ve come to trust them implicitly. When we’re looking for something new for Mango, we want wines that work brilliantly with the big flavours in our food but, just as importantly, are simply really delicious to drink.
For the tasting nights, we work together to choose the wines and tapas, then the PDN team join us on the night to talk you through what’s in your glass. They know their stuff, but they also know this is dinner, not a lecture. Ask them as much as you like, pick their brains, or just enjoy what's been poured.
Next Wine & Thai Tapas Tasting Night
Friday 16 October 2026
Mango Portswood, Southampton
Arrive from 7pm · Tasting begins 7.30pm · Finishes around 10pm
£54 per person
Spaces for our tasting nights are limited, and as quite a few people have already been asking when the next one would be, we’d recommend booking ahead.
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