(Eater) - The Italian outposts misused the "sulfite-free" label

Uh oh: Eataly has reportedly been slapped with a fine by Italian authorities after mislabeling bottles of wine it sold in the country.

According to Italian site Il Fatto Quotidiano, Eataly has been fined $50,000 Euros by the country's Antitrust Authority after it produced and sold wines with the country's "Free Wine" label, which is meant to signify a wine which contains less than 50 mg/l of added sulfites.

"The wine advertised as 'sulfite-free' actually contained several chemical compounds, although well below the legal limits," reads the Il Fatto report (which was translated from Italian). The Antitrust Authority argued that the labels were misleading, despite the fact that the wine contains less than the maximum amount of sulfites allowed by law. The wines were reportedly sold from April 2014 until at least January 2016.

The Authority has also sanctioned the Free Wine Association and Mirafiore Society and Fontanafredda, all of which are "responsible for the distribution of the wines participating in the Free Wine project and trade relations with Eataly."

In 2014, Eataly's New York outpost got in trouble with the New York State Liquor Authority, when the agency accused owners Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich of skirting a law that prohibits liquor-license holders from also being producers of wine, locally or internationally (Bastianich and his mother own an Italian winery). Batali was also charged with "suppressing information" about his partners' wine business. The duo were ordered to pay a $500,000 fine and close the wine store within Eataly New York for six months.

Update: 5/11/16; 2:42 p.m. In a statement, an Eataly representative says that it is untrue that the wines were ever promoted as containing "no sulfites" and says the sanctions instead derive from when certain wine-labeling rules went into effect.