Georgetta Dane was a bright young woman living in Romania. She had just finished her graduate degree in food sciences from the prestigious Galati University, but her prospects were looking grim. Georgetta had two career choices: Work in a meat factory making sausages, or work in an institutional winery making bulk wine. “There is no romance in making sausage,” she thought, so she decided to pursue the more romantic option. But fate, luck or kismet intervened. On a whim, she and her husband, Corneliu, decided to enter a lottery to come to the United States on a special visa that would allow them to work in America and eventually acquire a green card. Out of millions of applicants, the Danes were lucky winners.

They had a young daughter, no family or job in the U.S., and neither one of them spoke a stitch of English. But they took a leap of faith, packed up and ended up in Monterey, Calif., just in time to participate in the harvest at Kendall-Jackson’s new winery.