Wine; what is it?
Wine
Wine is a free implementation of the Windows API; that is to say, it allows you to use Linux or Mac OS X to run software designed for Microsoft Windows. It is developed by WineHQ. This is the engine behind PlayOnLinux/PlayOnMac.
WINEPREFIX
Wine uses what is called a WINEPREFIX to encapsulate Windows applications. This prefix contains the Wine configuration files and a reproduction of the file hierarchy of C:\ (the main disk on a Windows OS). In this reproduction of the C:\ drive, the installation of your software happens.
Under PlayOnLinux and PlayOnMac
The trouble is that Wine can be difficult to use and all applications do not work properly with this or that version of Wine. To avoid this inconvenience, PlayOnLinux and PlayOnMac will isolate the different version of Wine and allow to run Windows applications with Wine version most compatible. It additionally offers an uninstall simple as it just delete the folder WINEPREFIX to completely uninstall Windows software.