Simulations of a dilute spray evaporating in spatially decaying homogeneous turbulence are performed. An Eulerian description of the flow is adopted, while the behavior of the discrete liquid phase is captured using Lagrangian modeling. Time and length scales of the continuous carrier phase are fully simulated and by varying the properties of the modeled spray, a database of spray carrier phase direct numerical simulation (CP-DNS) is obtained. The CP-DNS is then filtered on a coarse grid to conduct a priori tests of subgrid scale (SGS) closures. The objective is to provide methods for approximating the level of SGS mixture fraction variance in large eddy simulation (LES) of fuel spray turbulent combustion. Direct estimation of the variance from the scales resolved in LES is first discussed. Then, the solving of a balance equation to get the variance is addressed, with closures for the scalar dissipation rate and the correlation between vapor source and mixture fraction. From the results, a procedure to couple spray evaporation with SGS turbulent combustion modeling emerges. (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Combustion Institute.