There’s no stopping our appetite for Italian holiday homes, with food-lovers enjoying the opportunities on offer in Tuscany

 
By day, they press their own olive oil from the groves around their farmhouse, peruse the produce at local markets and organise tours of the vineyards. By night, they cook meals for their guests, or host wine-and-food matching events. Martyn and Margaret Lewis, from Oxfordshire, are living every food lover’s dream.

They bought Casa Lavanda, a beautiful six-bedroom farmhouse in the Florentine hills just north of “Chiantishire”, with eight acres of wild-rosemary meadows and gardens with fig, apricot and cherry trees, in 1999.

“We were always switched on to the Mediterranean lifestyle, particularly the food,” says Martyn. “It was meant as a semi-retirement holiday home, but we found a way to spend more time here.”­

The couple converted …