Abstract 
Near the polar frontier of vine growing the vegetative cycle 
of the vine is strongly influenced by topoclimatic factors. 
As the quality of the grapes and the risk of growing them 
depends on these factors, the German and European vine - growing 
legislation requires,supported by an expertise on climatic 
conditions, a strict delimitation of the area provided 
for the growing of quality grapes.A problem, however, 
is the fixation of the lowest altitude of vine - growing 
in a hilly terrain.On the plain vine - growing is 
impossible because of to great risk of frost damages in 
spring and autumn. 
A line - scanner flown at 3600m and 800m 
above ground was used to represent the Kaiserstuhl region 
in thermal images.These images can be used to show the 
delimitation of areas influenced by cold air layers and 
areas favourable for vine - growing.The distribution of 
surface temperature in the low level images corresponds 
well to air temperature measurements in individual lots. 
Also discussed are the precision of this 
method,its limitations as well as the necessity for extensive 
ground truth measurements to complement it.