The incubation period between infection and obvious symptoms is usually one year or more, depending on the response of the plant to both pathogen and environmental circumstances.

[3] Its insect vector, S. titanus, was originally native to the Eastern United States and Canada and is believed to have been introduced to Europe either during World War II or earlier with American rootstock brought in to fight off phylloxera.

Spreading steadily throughout France, it had by 1987 reached the wine growing regions of Cognac, Languedoc and northern and southern Rhône, and by 1992 the Loire Valley, and Bordeaux.

[1] There is no cure at the moment and the way to manage its spread is by:[5][6] Complete suppression of Flavescence dorée is not possible only with insecticides because they reduce populations of S. titanus in average by about 80-95%.

[7] It has been proposed by Antoine Caudwell, a French agriculturist who was a pioneer in research on grapevine phytoplasma diseases such as flavescence dorée, to treat plant material with hot water since 1966.