Our Story

Living and working in Maremma Tuscany, creating incredible organic IGP Olive Oil Toscana extra virgin olive oil and ‘Capricci’ our own Tenuta Le Mandorlaie IGT Toscana Rosso red wine is exciting, but it did not happen by chance, here is our story and a little background into how we decided to move to Italy, and in particular Maremma in Tuscany.

Marthese

I am from Malta and lived and worked in Malta until 2019 when the move was made to our new home in the locality of Mandorlaie, Maremma in Tuscany, Italy.

With a background of operating bars and restaurants and real estate sales my background of customer and clients services means I can understand what clients expect when staying with us.

What do I enjoy, I like cooking, wine, reading, traveling, painting, swimming, cycling, making new friends and the company of our friends.

Stuart

Coming originally for the UK, but with time spent traveling with parents in the RAF I worked initially in the information technology sector for a decade, then a move to yacht chart skipper and yacht management.

After several years of working in this area it was time to operate my own business so created several startup companies in Malta.

I enjoy being creative, swimming, cycling, food, wine, traveling, classic cars and the company of good friends.

Our Big move to Tuscany

Move forward 10 years for us, and Marthese & I had just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary and the move to Tuscany was in motion, after selling our home in Malta it was time to move towards our long term goal, of living and working in Italy and, if we could create it, operating our own organic farm in Tuscany producing premium IGP Olive Oil Toscana extra virgin olive oil and our IGT Toscana wine while also hosting guests at our Vineyard stay agriturismo.

Where to buy property in Tuscany

Our search for the place to live in Italy actually started many years earlier, we spent many weeks touring the area of Tuscany, map in hand, marking down areas or interest, in the end we decided that several factors needed to be occurring, they were;

• altitude, 300m or more, but less than 1000m – at Tenuta Le Mandorlaie we are at 350m above sea level
• easy road access to main roads – we are 15 minutes from the main arterial road that leads to Rome and Firenze/Pisa
• a small town nearby with shops – Scansano is 8 minutes drive, has all shops, COOP, banks, chemist, butcher
• a large city not more far away – Grosseto is 30 minutes drive away
• proximity to beaches – the Maremma blue flag coast is 30 minutes away with many beaches
• existing olive grove and grapevines – we have 4400 grapevines and 900 olives trees
• land to farm and increase our production – we have around 58 hectares of land
• 3 bedroom house – we have three bedrooms in our main house
• possibility to open an agriturismo – we have a small cottage next to our house that guests can stay at
• close to airports – we are equal distance to Rome and Pisa airports
• within our budget – some areas of Tuscany are very expensive, we found Maremma to be better value
• rural and quiet – Maremma really is the unspoiled Tuscany
• a house we liked immediately – you can tell when you like a house, even from first impressions

If you are interested in buying property in Italy, we have put together our tips to make things go smoothly from the start, you can read details here Buying Property in Italy

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