(Reuters) - British wine warehouse chain Majestic Wine posted a 20 percent rise in first-half profit, winning more customers despite tough economic headwinds. The company, which trades from 174 UK stores, said on Monday it made a pretax profit of 8.8 million pounds ($14.1 million) in the 26 weeks to Sept. 26, up from 7.3 million pounds in the same period last year.Sales increased 8.7 percent to 127.8 million pounds, as the number of active customers increased 7.7 percent to 534,000.