Although there are no critics I “follow,” I will read some of their TNs when shopping; for those occasions, I tend to trust John just as much, if not more, than anyone else. His palate seems to largely correspond to mine, and I appreciate his willingness to depart from a narrow band of middle ground scores, both on the low and high ends.
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If he brings back roadkill I am all in…
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I love John’s writing, and have followed him since the aoweb article days and subscribed to View From the Cellar as soon as it started. His producer profile articles with extensive vertical tastings and his frequent vintage retrospectives, particularly in the area of Burgundy, are unequaled. He is a classicist, and does not like wines that are clobbered with oak or overripe or over extracted, and is not afraid to call out offenders.
My only regret (aside from the absence of the Roadkill features) is that his newsletter was started as a “view from the cellar”, with an emphasis on how older vintages were progressing in the cellar (with retrospectives on various Burgundy vintages, premox “watches” on white Burgundy vintages, long and detailed articles on producers with extensive notes on their older wines), but in more recent years the tasting notes on newly released wines IMO far outnumber the notes on older vintages. For those of us who are buying less in recent vintages, this is a shame. Many of us are interested in how the older vintages are coming along, which wines exceed expectations and which are disappointments, both as a drinking guide and as a guide to backfilling and buying at auction. But, with rare exceptions, no one else is serving this need…not Vinous, not the Wine Advocate, no one. When the goal is to cover, in depth, new releases from every wine producing region in the world, there just isn’t the time or space. (I guess space should not be an issue now that all the newsletters are online.) I suppose coverage of newly released wines is what sells subscriptions, and we already have publications filling that need.
But again, John is great, his writing is superb, and the only thing that would ever make me drop my subscription is if I have to wait too damn long for some more articles on older Burgundy, Piedmont, or Northern Rhône’s.
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John is a weird critic because he has a reputation as outspoken and critical because of his Bordeaux writings, but he is actually extremely soft on every other region. Like, he’s basically never met a Burgundy he doesn’t like and regularly goes gaga over California wines as well. Since he stopped doing Bordeaux (a big loss) he’s pretty much a creampuff in his reviews.
As far as drinking windows go, I do think Gilman is extreme. I feel like people greatly underestimate the number of wines that are good through say 25 years old, but also overestimate the number of wines that can reach 50 years without being seriously on the downslope. I find most non-fortified wines have an inflection point somewhere between 30 and 40 years old where they start feeling noticeably tired. But I am not as experienced as some here.
I follow him on Twitter and appreciate his enthusiasm and idiosyncrasies. One quibble is he seems anti-screw cap for aging and I’ve seen him grouse about canned (vs. bottled) beer, when everyone knows most of today’s best breweries are almost all can! 
I don’t think there is much point visiting producers you know you won’t like, and giving them a low score. For John the great adventure is writing about producers who make terroir driven wines. John tends to visit these producers, and not waste time going to those whose wines do not have a signature. And sadly there are plenty of those too.
Anti-screw cap is a gross understatement. He is by far the most vocal critic of screw caps. There was a time when his negative views were a little more in line with reality, but that was a number of years ago.
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He’s not entirely alone. Claude Kolm has told me that he’s tasted bottles of the same wines side by side where the corked wines were just better. I don’t recall the details, but I gather this is not a completely eccentric view.
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No, it’s not. John is just more…umm…emphatic.
I have too, but with exactly the same handling before bottling. I suspect some minor adjustments to SO2 and/or air exposure for the screwcap wines might yield different results.
Agreed. My sense is that John does not like many, many California wines, for example, but writes about the ones he does like to highlight them.
Just to add quickly, John is great company and incredibly knowledgeable on wine. His palate leans more towards more traditional wines with less oak, but he obviously drinks pretty widely. John also loves older American wines and is particularly knowledgeable on those.
I was not familiar with John Gilman or his newsletter until I came across this thread. Prompted by the very positive reviews, I requested a sample copy from John and promptly received two, the extra one being a special Burgundy edition, in response to my mentioning a particular interest in this region. Very impressed and have just subscribed, so thanks for sharing your views.