The communication proposes a critical genealogy of a concept, “virtual water”, in other words, understanding the social and political context in which this concept emerged and was deployed. We first discuss what exactly virtual water is, how and why such a concept was developed. We then analyze the emergence of an international formulation of the water and agriculture nexus in the 1970s-1980s to later focus on the turning point of the 1990s that saw the emergence of the virtual water concept. Finally, we undertake a critical analysis of the different trajectories of the concept in the 1990s and 2000s, at a global scale.