I held my breath the whole time.

Blessedly, moments later we continued the tour — first to La Camera Freda, where the cheese is dried, then to the cantina, the cave in which it is aged.

“A good pecorino should be sweet even if it’s mature,” said Gian Maria Menta, the owner of Romeo Formaggi di Menta Gian Maria e Gionata, a famous cheese store in Piombino, who had come with me to the farm. Mr. Menta and I walked through the dank cantina of Cugusi, past shelves of gran riserva, which are turned twice a day to prevent mold.

“We don’t want to get bigger,” Ms. Cugusi said. “We want to make a quality pecorino.” To these artisanal farmers, the two are mutually exclusive. “My father moved his family here in 1962. The Val d’Orcia has gotten richer but the environment hasn’t changed — we protect the land, we don’t use chemicals, the shepherds respect the countryside.”

My 6-year-old son has inherited (or perhaps absorbed) my love of cheese. I have seen him turn spaghetti away when he sensed the parmesan was not Parmigiano-Reggiano. I have seen him correct the arrangement of a cheese tray. So when I was invited to a pecorino tasting at my favorite hotel in the valley, I brought Finn.

“We will move from light to heavy, sweet to spicy,” explained Dario Ferreri, the chef at La Bandita. “This is not a cheese tasting.” Finn and I looked at each other, somewhat befuddled. “We must think of what happened to make this cheese,” Mr. Ferreri said dramatically. “We must think of the story that it tells. This will be our journey through the valley.”

We began our odyssey with pecorino fresco paired with vin santo jam. Then pecorino with saffron, drizzles of local honey, aged pecorino wrapped in walnut leaves, Tropean onion preserve, green tomato mostarda, and on and on.