Grana Padano is a hard, slow-ripened cow's-milk cheese from the Po Valley of northern Italy — its name from grana, the "grainy" texture of its straw-yellow paste, which fractures into savoury, faintly crystalline flakes. Mild, nutty and gently salty when young and deeply fragrant when aged, it is grated over pasta and risotto, shaved into salads and broken into chunks. Protected as a PDO since 1996, it is the best-selling protected-origin cheese in the world.