A new Grana Padano Cheese television spot is about to hit our digital screens.

The last one was iconic and ran from 2002.

The ad featured a cheese knife slicing through grapes, honey, walnuts etc to land with a thud in a round of Grana Padano. Difficult to beat.

View the commercial here

The new one is located in a romantic Paris by night as a couple enjoy a meal on a classic barge as they drift along the Seine.

The hook hangs around him being unable to uncork his champagne bottle until she nibbles some flakes of cheese and passes him a napkin she was using to wipe the crumbs from her lips.

Holding the bottle with the said napkin, the cork immediately pops out and the bubbly flows.

Ad men love this sort of thing.

What we find interesting are the sales stats for Grana Padano cheese.

The press release for the new spot also provided the following titbits from the Il Consorzio per la Tutela del Formaggio Grana Padano.

- Grana Padano has 48.1% of the hard cheese market in Italy compared with 40.3% for Parmigiano Reggiano.

- the price of a kilo of Grana Padano is 4 euros less than Parmigiano Reggiano.

- 2008 saw the following countires topping the export list for Grana Padano in descending order: Germany, USA, Switzerland, France, UK, Canada, Benelux, Spain, Austria, Japan.

- Germany’s quota was almost double that of USA and Switzerland combined. The country imported 251,615 rounds of the cheese.

- Japan only imported 23,213.