Questor share tip: Majestic Wine enjoys vintage Christmas AIM-LISTED Majestic Wine reported strong Christmas sales as customers treated themselves to more expensive bottles of wine. While the sales performance was good, Questor is focusing on the dividend, which is forecast to grow by about 10pc in each of the next two years. "Customers chose to treat themselves and we saw strong growth in sales of fine wine above £20 per bottle," said Steve Lewis, chief executive. Revenue growth was also helped by a new, user-friendly website, which increased online sales by 8.3pc. Total like-for-like sales in UK stores increased by 2.8pc during the 10 weeks from October 29 to January 6. Meanwhile, the commercial division, which sells to pubs and restaurants, increased sales 8.6pc to £25.6m - representing more than a fifth of total UK sales. Wage pressure did slightly eat into the gross profit margin, but tight cost control elsewhere in the business helped to boost operating profit by 4pc. The wine company is steadily adding new customers to its database and in the interim results reported a 6pc increase to more than 630,000. Majestic also said it planned to increase the total number of UK stores to 203 by December 31. The shares slipped by 6pc last week and as they are looking expensive, trading on 18 times forecast earnings, they remain a hold.