Sardinia is like Italy, but more innocent. Where mainlanders can seem rather pleased with themselves, the Sardinians I meet are open, warm and understated.

There are thousands of absurdly tanned vacationing Italians on the Costa Smeralda, so I drive inland. Within a couple of kilometres, the countryside is blissfully empty of traffic. It is hot and dry, and early July. Wild myrtle bushes are everywhere, their blossoms almost white, their leaves privet green. By early autumn, their berries will be like tiny black eyes, ready for picking and distilling into mirto, Sardinia's digestif. The rest of the landscape has had the colour dried out of it. Shades of straw and chamomile shake gently in the heat.

This area is Gallura, and the grapes are vermentino Gallurese. Just looking at the vineyards makes me thirsty, so I look for an agriturismo. There are hundreds of these on the island - working farms that are also restaurants with rooms. Narrow roads squirm past workers peeling cork trunks off elderly oaks and, yes, a sign to Li Licci - Turismo Rurale.

Li Licci means The Oaks and its generous veranda shelters cool under their boughs. You know immediately when a place is right. A sense of purposeful calm pervades, as does the exciting smell of good meat roasting. There is no menu but everything that I will eat and drink is the farm's own produce: a pitcher of vermentino wine, an oval plate rippled with soft prosciutto, and one of shouty smoked sausage. Chilli oily olives and a basket of pane carasau, the Sardinian crispy bread.

Involtini are things wrapped around other things. Mine are slices of young purple aubergine enveloping a nub of white sheep's cheese, a ruby jewel of fresh tomato and a basil leaf. This is flavour in surround sound. The last starter is latte crema, a delicate mess of extra creamy sheep's cheese cooked with just enough semolina to give it body. It is like the ultimate baby food.

Zuppa Gallurese is country comfort food at its best: you make it like lasagne, only with slices of stale crusty bread layered with a stretchy cheese. Pour good broth over then whack it in the oven until it's brown. It takes 10 gulping-glutton burnt-mouth minutes to eat, and a month in the gym to work off.

I don't care, nor do I flinch at the two plates of pasta. Both come with the same fresh tomato sauce: one is the knobbly Sardinian shell shapes called malloreddus; the other, flat floppy ravioli stuffed with sheep's ricotta and dried mint. When pigs are very young they are porcheddu. Mine is sweet, soft, myrtle-wood roast meat moist under beautifully lacquered crackling. Dessert is out of the question, as is driving, so I drink much mirto and arrange to stay - perhaps for ever. Beautiful, empty, innocent Sardinia is, I decide, a very good place to be greedy.

· Li Licci, Valentino, San Antonio di Gallura (00 39 079 665 114/+348 069 3700, lilicci.com). Meals about €40. Half-board in high season €75pp per night.