The name Gouais derives from the old French adjective ‘gou’, a term of derision befitting its traditional status as the grape of the peasants.

Gouais blanc was also grown in the Jura, but the phylloxera epidemic wiped out the variety in France, and it now survives only in the INRA collection at Domaine de Vassal, Montpellier.

[3] DNA fingerprinting at the University of California, Davis, in the late 1990s, identified Gouais blanc as the ancestor of a large number of classical European grape varieties.

This unique combination of events means that many grape varieties today have Gouais blanc as a parent, the most famous of which is Chardonnay.

The first North American commercial planting of Gouais was in 2019 at Pamar Vineyard in the Van Duzer Corridor AVA of Oregon's Willamette Valley.