Novel cropping systems should be evaluated with respect to their contribution to sustainable development, i.e. their environmental impacts, economical performances and social acceptability for farmers. To this end, a multiple criteria assessment tool (DEXi) was adopted. Scales were defined to convert values of evaluation indicators (based on models and expert knowledge) into qualitative classes of criteria, that were then aggregated using ‘if… then…’ decision rules. The method was tested on two virtual grape producing farms defined with contrasting production objectives and availability of labor and equipment, and several cropping systems differing by their use of pesticides were compared. The environmental attributes evaluated were: biodiversity, energy use and quality of the soil, water and atmosphere compartments. The economic adoptability was evaluated through the satisfaction of grape production objectives, the stability of grape production, and the cost of implementation of the cropping system. For the social impacts, the attributes were: difficulty to implement the candidate system, task overlap, health risk, social recognition and free time. The study highlighted the need to adapt the assessment process to the stakeholders’ priorities: some of the indicators were calculated in reference to the present vinegrower’s practices and production objectives, some criteria could take qualitative values that reflected the vinegrower’s opinion, the scale to convert values of indicators into classes of criteria could reflect the vinegrower’s objectives and constraints, the aggregation of criteria were set up by vinegrowers for the social and economics criteria and by other stakeholders (e.g. watershed managers) for the environmental criteria.