It works! I saw that thread and then tried to figure out what this pulseaudio means and what it has got to do with me not having sound (keep in mind that I'm new to the Linux world so the very concept of "sound server" is all Chinese to me). Anyway it turned out that in my Ubuntu add/remove applications list there was some app that was named pulseaudio and I fugured I may need it. So I just installed that - then went to the Wine config and pressed the test button and voilà! there was a sound coming loud and clear! So in actuality it seems that I did the very opposite of what that thread recommends (i.e. disable/remove pulseaudio).
