Let A be an abelian category, and V , W two additive full subcategories of A . We introduce and study the VW -Gorenstein subcategory of A , which unifies many known notions, such as the Gorenstein category and the category consisting of GC -projective (injective) modules, although they were defined in a different way. We also prove that the Bass class with respect to a semidualizing module is one kind of VW -Gorenstein category. The connections between VW -Gorenstein categories and Gorenstein categories are discussed. Some applications are given.